PURPOSE: To determine which is the best anthropometric index among body mass\nindex (BMI), waist to hip ratio (WHR), waist to stature ratio (WSR) and C index in\nrelation to cardiovascular diseases risk factors.\nMETHODS: This cross-sectional study was carried out during - in a sample of\nIranian female college students, aged - years that were selected via multistage\ncluster random sampling from university of Fars province. Fasting blood sugar, lipid\nprofile including total cholesterol (TC), Low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), high\ndensity lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) and triglycerides (TG) were estimated by standard\nenzymatic procedures and anthropometric indices were measured. Pearson correlation\ncoefficients and multiple linear regressions were used in analysis.\nRESULTS: The correlation between BMI and all cardiovascular diseases risk factors\nwere statistically significant. There was positive correlation between WHR and WSR\nwith TC, TG and LDL, while there was a negative correlation between WSR and HDL.\nThere was no correlation between C index and cardiovascular diseases risk factors\nexcept for TG. Multiple regression analysis confirmed the predictive power of BMI,\nWHR and WSR for cardiovascular diseases risk factors and BMI was the best simple\nanthropometric index in predicting cardiovascular diseases risk factors in non-obese\nfemale college students.\nCONCLUSIONS: These data support the hypothesis that BMI, WSR, WHR and C index\nmay be considered as risk factors for cardiovascular disease and BMI is a better index\nfor predicting some cardiovascular risk factors in young non-obese women