ArticleArchives of disease in childhood2001
A critique of the expression of paediatric body composition data.
Article in Archives of disease in childhood, 2001. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 97 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
97 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Body fat in children measured by DXA, air-displacement plethysmography, TBW and multicomponent models: a systematic review.Maternal and child health journal · 2015Pooled it
- Effect of school-based physical activity interventions on body mass index in children: a meta-analysis.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2009Pooled it
- Physical activity as a predictor of adolescent body fatness: a systematic review.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2009Pooled it
- Trial
- The Consequences of Foster Care Versus Institutional Care in Early Childhood on Adolescent Cardiometabolic and Immune Markers: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial.Psychosomatic medicine · 2019Trial
- Relationships between the lean mass index and bone mass and reference values of muscular status in healthy Chinese children and adolescents.Journal of bone and mineral metabolism · 2016Trial
- Probiotics during weaning: a follow-up study on effects on body composition and metabolic markers at school age.European journal of nutrition · 2015Trial
- Impact of the FITKids physical activity intervention on adiposity in prepubertal children.Pediatrics · 2014Trial
- MVPA is associated with lower weight gain in 8-10 year old children: a prospective study with 1 year follow-up.PloS one · 2011Trial
- Pitfalls in the assessment of body composition in survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.Archives of disease in childhood · 2004Trial
- Associations Between Maternal Pre-Pregnancy Dietary Patterns and Body Composition in Preschool Children: A Prospective Cohort Study.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Maternal Physical Activity and Its Relationship to the Human Milk Metabolome and Infant Body Composition.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2025Article
- Association Between Healthful Plant-Based Dietary Pattern and Adiposity Measures Trajectories and Future Metabolic Diseases Risk: A Prospective Cohort Study.Food science & nutrition · 2025Article
- Cross-sectional associations between physical activity and sedentary time with cardiovascular health in children from the ALSPAC study using compositional data analysis.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Maternal dietary patterns as predictors of neonatal body composition in Ethiopia: the IABC birth cohort study.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Article
- Association between overweight/obesity and dental outcomes in early childhood: Findings from an Australian cohort study.Community dentistry and oral epidemiology · 2025Article
- Sarcopenic obesity in survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia: prevalence, risk factors, and implications for cancer survivors.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2024Article
- Reference values for body composition in healthy urban Mexican children and adolescents.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2024Article
- Is fat-to-lean mass ratio a better predictor of heart variability than body mass index?Journal of education and health promotion · 2024Article
- Nighttime eating during pregnancy and infant adiposity at 6 months of life.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
37 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There is increasing interest in body composition in paediatric research, as distinct from growth and nutritional status, as almost all diseases have adverse effects on either fatness or the fat-free mass. However, the approaches used to assess growth and nutritional status are not appropriate for separate evaluations of body fatness and lean mass. Traditional measurements such as body mass index and skinfold thickness do not measure fat in accurate quantitative terms. Various techniques have been used in recent years which divide body weight into fat mass and fat-free mass; however, the data tend not to be appropriately expressed. Body fatness is generally expressed as a percentage of weight, while fat-free mass typically remains unadjusted for size. A more appropriate approach is to normalise both body fatness and fat-free mass for height. This recommendation is relevant both to studies comparing patients with controls and to the expression of new reference data on body composition which are needed to allow informative comparisons. The same approach is appropriate for the classification of childhood obesity.
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