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Background: People with psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia, suffer premature cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Obesity is a major factor in cardiometabolic disorders in this population. There has been very little research investigating differences in patterns of obesity in diverse ethnic populations. Guidelines for treatment of complex comorbidities in people with schizophrenia and related psychoses may need to provide specific recomendations for different ethnic groups. Methods: The Chinese sample consisted 192 subjects were recruited from the outpatients and inpatients department of the psychiatry department of the third affiliated hospital of Sun Yat-sen. All enrolled subjects were Chinese Han ethnicity, aged 16–45 years, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia according to ICD-10 criteria for schizophrenia, excluding other acute psychiatric disorders. The Australian sample (N=1825) were drawn from the Survey of High Impact Psychosis. BMI and central obesity were measured in all subjects. Results: 10.3% of men and 4.7% of women in the China sample were obese (BMI>30). In the Australian sample, 41.6% of men and 50.3% of women were obese. Overall, 7.8% of Chinese sample and 45.1% of the Australian sample were obese. However, amongst the non-obese China sample, 41.7% of men and 53.1% of women had central obesity; the mean for all non-obese Chinese people was 46.7%. 73% of non-obese Australian men and 81.5% of non-obese Australian women had central obesity; the mean for all non-obese Australians was 76%. Discussion: Chinese Han people with schizophrenia have much lower rates of obesity than the Australian sample. In both groups, rates of abdominal obesity were higher than rates of obesity as defined by BMI. These ethnic differences may help in understanding the high rates of cardiometabolic disorder in people with psychotic disorders in Western countries. They may also inform interventions to assist Western people with psychoses to maintain better physical health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]