A comparison of distribution curves of body mass index from Brazil and the United States for assessing overweight and obesity in Brazilian adolescents Comparación de las curvas de distribución del índice de masa corporal en Brasil y Estados Unidos para evaluar el sobrepeso y la obesidad en adolescentes brasileños

• Main Authors: Glória Valéria da Veiga, Patrícia Camacho Dias, Luiz Antonio dos Anjos
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Spanish; Portuguese
• Published: Pan American Health Organization 2001
• Subjects: Health of adolescents; obesity; Brazil; body mass index; Medicine; R; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/34a68f5cd42a43c088dc114f1ac417a0

Objective. To assess the validity of recommendations for use of the 85th and 95th percentiles of body mass index (BMI) of the population in the United States of America as a screening tool to assess overweight/obesity in adolescents. Methods. We investigated the relation between BMI and percent body fat in 1 540 adolescents (717 males and 823 females) aged 10 to 17.9 years old from a private high school in Niterói, a city in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We used bioelectric impedance, with the appropriate equations for adolescents, to estimate percent body fat, which served as the gold standard (30% for girls and 25% for boys) to calculate the sensitivity and specificity of the 85th and 95th percentiles of the United States and Brazilian distribution curves of BMI. Results. Sensitivity and specificity were high (above 80%) for the Niterói boys, except for the 85th percentile of the Brazilian curve (specificity = 61.8%) and for the 95th percentile of the United States curve (sensitivity = 55.4%). For the Niterói girls, the 85th- and 95th-percentile BMI cutoff points, from both the United States and Brazilian curves, showed low sensitivity, and that sensitivity decreased with age. Specificity was high for the girls, and much higher than it was for the boys. Conclusions. These data suggest that using BMI to screen for overweight/obesity in adolescents can generate a high percentage of false-positives for Niterói boys and an even higher percentage of false-negatives for Niterói girls. A more universal approach to using anthropometric measures to screen for overweight/obesity should be developed, preferably linked to stages of maturation. Objetivos. Investigar la validez del empleo de los percentiles 85 y 95 del índice de masa corporal (IMC) de la población de los Estados Unidos de América (EE. UU.) para detectar el sobrepeso y la obesidad en adolescentes. Métodos. Se investigó la relación entre el IMC y el porcentaje de grasa corporal en 1 540 adolescentes (717 del sexo masculino y 823 del sexo femenino) de ...