ArticleThe American journal of clinical nutrition2022
Body composition data show that high BMI centiles overdiagnose obesity in children aged under 6 years.
Article in The American journal of clinical nutrition, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of 10 Weeks of Walking With Mobile Step-Tracking Apps on Body Composition, Fitness, and Psychological State in Adolescents Who Are Overweight and Obese: Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Trial
- Cluster analysis with body composition data for health risk assessment in children.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- The LMSz method - an automatable scalable approach to constructing gene-specific growth charts in rare disorders.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2026Article
- Association between size at birth, rapid weight gain in infancy, and overweight status among Palestinian refugees under 5 years old: a retrospective cohort study.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Article
- Weekday-specific associations of movement behaviors with body composition in preschool children: A compositional data analysis.Biology of sport · 2026Article
- Altered body composition in children and adolescents with achondroplasia.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Associations between adiposity indicators and composite motor fitness among boys and girls in late childhood.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
- Standardisation of bioimpedance assessment in young children: a feasibility study of home-based body composition measurement in Danish two-year-olds.Preventive medicine reports · 2025Article
- Physical fitness is associated with fat mass and muscle mass in Chinese preschoolers.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Report of a Meeting: An Expert Consultation on Body Composition and Adiposity for Children and Adolescents in All Their Diversity.Current developments in nutrition · 2025Article
- The Cross-Sectional Relation of Body Mass Index to Adiposity among 8- to 19-Year-Olds within Several Races and Ethnicities.The Journal of pediatrics · 2025Article
- The evolution of the understanding of obesity over the last 100 years.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025Review
- Parents' Responses and Reactions to the National Childhood Measurement Programme in a Contemporary Sample of British Children: A Mixed-Method Study.Journal of obesity · 2025Article
- Global, regional, and national disease burden attributable to high body mass index in youth and young adults: 2021 global burden of disease study analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Waist-circumference-to-height-ratio had better longitudinal agreement with DEXA-measured fat mass than BMI in 7237 children.Pediatric research · 2024Article
- Body composition and motor function in children born large for gestational age at term.Pediatric research · 2024Article
- Occurrence of Body Posture Abnormalities in Overweight and Obese Children Aged 5-6 Years-Pilot Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- COVID-19 impact on overweight and obesity rates in Aotearoa | New Zealand 4-year-old children.Pediatric research · 2024Article
- Who is Focusing on Women's Health: A Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research Trends on Overweight in Female Patients with Gynecologic or Breast Cancer.International journal of women's health · 2024Article
- Chronic exercise interventions for executive function in overweight children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2024Review
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMost authorities define childhood overweight/obesity as a BMI exceeding the same high centile cutoff at all ages, but it seems unlikely that true obesity prevalence (excess body fat) is constant throughout childhood.
objectivesWe investigated how fat mass (FM) and lean mass (LM), adjusted for height, relate to BMI and each other across childhood, using a uniquely large database of body composition measures, estimated using gold standard methods.
methodsCross-sectional and cohort data were collated from representative samples of healthy children aged 6 wk to 20 y and children attending obesity clinics aged 7-16 y. Body composition was measured by deuterium dilution up to age 4 y, and by either deuterium or the criterion 4-component model from 4 to 20 y. FM and LM were expressed, respectively, as fat mass index (FMI; FM/height2) and lean mass index (LMI; LM/height2).
resultsThere were 2367 measurements of weight, height, and body composition from 1953 individuals. Before age 6 y, the variability in FMI, LMI, and BMI was much less than after; FMI was low (mainly <8 kg/m2) and FMI and LMI were weakly negatively correlated. From mid-childhood, upper limits for both BMI and FMI rose, but FMI in children with BMI <91st centile still rarely exceeded 8. With increasing age, the correlation of FMI with LMI rose to 0.5-0.7, driven mainly by children with a high FMI also having a high LMI.
conclusionsRaised fat levels are much less common at younger than older ages, and young children with a high BMI centile have lower FMI than older children with the same BMI centile. Current BMI centile cutoffs thus overdiagnose obesity in younger groups. More stringent cutoffs are required for children aged <6 y, matching the WHO recommendation for 0-5 y.
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