PMID- 20052852
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20101221
LR  - 20191210
IS  - 0009-0875 (Print)
IS  - 0009-0875 (Linking)
VI  - 54
IP  - 4
DP  - 2009 Dec
TI  - Validity of currently used cutoff values of body mass index as a measure of 
      obesity in Sri Lankan children.
PG  - 114-9
AB  - OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to determine the reliability of body mass 
      index based (BMI) cutoff values in diagnosing obesity among Sri Lankan children. 
      METHODS: Height, weight, waist circumference (WC) and hip circumference (HC) in 
      282 children were measured. Total body water was determined by deuterium dilution 
      and fat mass (FM) derived using age and gender specific constants. A percentage 
      FM of 30% for girls and 25% for boys were considered as cutoff levels for 
      obesity. RESULTS: Two hundred and eighty two children (M/F: 158/124) were studied 
      and 99 (80%) girls and 72 (45.5%) boys were obese based on % body fat. Eight 
      (6.4%) girls and nine (5.7%) boys were obese based on International Obesity Task 
      Force (IOTF) cutoff values. Percentage FM and WC centile charts were able to 
      diagnose a significant proportion of children as true obese children. The FM and 
      BMI were closely associated in both girls (r = 0.82, p < 0.001) and boys (r = 
      0.87, p < 0.001). Percentage FM and BMI had a very low but significant 
      association; girls (r = 0.32, p < 0.001) and boys (r = 0.68, p < 0.001). FM had a 
      significant association with WC and HC. BMI based cutoff values had a specificity 
      of 100% but a very low sensitivity, varying between 8% and 23.6%. CONCLUSIONS: 
      BMI is a poor indicator of the percentage fat and the commonly used cutoff values 
      were not sensitive to detect cases of childhood obesity in Sri Lankan children.
FAU - Wickramasinghe, V P
AU  - Wickramasinghe VP
AD  - Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. 
      pujithaw@yahoo.com
FAU - Lamabadusuriya, S P
AU  - Lamabadusuriya SP
FAU - Cleghorn, G J
AU  - Cleghorn GJ
FAU - Davies, P S W
AU  - Davies PS
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PT  - Validation Study
PL  - Sri Lanka
TA  - Ceylon Med J
JT  - The Ceylon medical journal
JID - 1264702
SB  - IM
MH  - Adipose Tissue
MH  - Adolescent
MH  - Anthropometry/methods
MH  - Body Fluids
MH  - *Body Mass Index
MH  - Child
MH  - Child, Preschool
MH  - Female
MH  - Humans
MH  - Male
MH  - Obesity/*diagnosis
MH  - Predictive Value of Tests
MH  - Reference Values
MH  - Reproducibility of Results
MH  - Sensitivity and Specificity
MH  - Sri Lanka
MH  - Statistics as Topic
EDAT- 2010/01/08 06:00
MHDA- 2010/12/22 06:00
CRDT- 2010/01/08 06:00
PHST- 2010/01/08 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2010/01/08 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2010/12/22 06:00 [medline]
AID - 10.4038/cmj.v54i4.1451 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Ceylon Med J. 2009 Dec;54(4):114-9. doi: 10.4038/cmj.v54i4.1451.