Both common and rare CNVs have been reported to be associated with overall adiposity14,15,24,25, but the impact of CNVs on fat distribution has not been evaluated previously. To examine the potential contribution of common CNVs to variation in WHR, we looked for evidence of association in our GWA discovery meta-analysis, using a set of 6,018 CNV-tagging SNPs, which collectively capture >40% of common CNVs >1 kb 26,27 (Online Methods, Supplementary Note).
