RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Body mass index centile charts to assess fatness of British children.
JF Archives of Disease in Childhood
JO Arch Dis Child
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
SP 38
OP 41
DO 10.1136/adc.72.1.38
VO 72
IS 1
A1 E M White
A1 A C Wilson
A1 S A Greene
A1 C McCowan
A1 G E Thomas
A1 A Y Cairns
A1 I W Ricketts
YR 1995
UL http://adc.bmj.com/content/72/1/38.abstract
AB Body mass index (BMI) relates weight to height and reflects the shape of a child, but because of age dependency it has not been used conventionally for the estimation of fatness in children. From measurements of Tayside children (n = 34,533) centile charts were constructed for BMI (wt/ht2) from the raw data of height and weight, using Cole's LMS method for normalised growth standards. These data were compared with the only available European BMI charts published from data of French children obtained over a period of 24 years from 1956-79. British children appear to be 'fatter'. Within a subgroup (n = 445) the BMI values were correlated with estimations of body fat, for boys and girls, from skinfold thickness (r = 0.8 and 0.81) and bioelectrical impedance (r = 0.65 and 0.7). The limits of acceptable BMI have yet to be defined.