Adolescent obesity can be defined using various age- and sex-specific growth charts. In addition to general obesity, central adiposity is also crucially important. This paper aims to study the efficacy of central adiposity with general obesity using different growth charts recommendations. A cross-sectional study was conducted among school-age children in Mumbai. Anthropometric data were obtained from 1349 adolescents aged 9–15 years. Growth charts of Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP), International Obesity Task Force (IOTF), and World Health Organization (WHO) were used to classify overweight and obese status among each of the participants. Central obesity indices such as the waist circumference (WC), the waist to height ratio (WHtR), and the waist to hip ratio (WHR) were calculated. The efficacy of each of central obesity indices was checked with overweight and obesity status. The receivers operating characteristics curves were drawn to check the efficacy of central obesity indices. According to IAP, IOTF, and WHO chart, the prevalence rates of overweight and obese among the sampled adolescents were 35.9%, 27.0%, and 25.0%, respectively, while, 26.5%, 26.3%, and 31% were found to be centrally obese as per WC, WHtR, and WHR, respectively. The values of area under curve for WC and WHtR were found between 0.857 and 0.942 for all three methods, while the corresponding values were between 0.611 and 0.689, indicating that WHR is a less robust indicator. We conclude that the central obesity status appears to be an efficient measure to identify the general obesity status irrespective of growth chart recommendations. WHtR and WC are found to be more robust indicators of general obesity.