Background Obesity may impact surgical outcomes of gastrectomy. Whether visceral fat area (VFA) is a better obesity parameter than body mass index (BMI) is still controversial. The aim of this study is to compare the accuracy and effectiveness of VFA and BMI in predicting the short-term surgical outcomes of gastrectomy. Methods Patients who were diagnosed with gastric cancer were measured for BMI and VFA preoperatively and then divided into a VFA-H (VFA-high) group and VFA-L (VFA-low) group, at the cutoff point of 100 cm 2 , and a BMI-H (BMI-high) group and BMI-L (BMI-low) group, at the cutoff point of 25 kg/m 2 . The short-term surgical outcomes were compared between the different groups. Results In total, 276 patients were enrolled in this study; 55 (19.9%) patients were classified into the BMI-H group, and 122 (44.2%) patients were classified into the VFA-H group. There was a significant correlation between BMI and VFA ( r  = 0.652, p  < 0.001). Compared with the VFA-L group, the VFA-H group had a higher incidence of postoperative complications (31.1% vs. 13.0%; p  < 0.001), longer operation duration (270.0 (235.0–305.0) vs. 255.0 (223.8–295.0), p  = 0.046), and more blood loss (100.0 (100.0–150.0) vs. 80.0 (80.0–100.0), p  < 0.001), while the BMI-H group had more blood loss than the BMI-L group (100.0 (100.0–120.0) vs. 100.0(80.0–100.0), p  = 0.006). Logistic regression showed that VFA was an independent risk factor for postoperative complications (odds ratio 2.813, 95% CI 1.523–5.194; p  = 0.001). Conclusion For gastric cancer patients, VFA is superior to BMI in accurately and effectively illuminating the impact of obesity on short-term surgical outcomes. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov : NCT02800005.