Children and youths with a excessive physique mass index (BMI) had been 29 occasions extra more likely to have a excessive fats mass index in contrast with youths who had decrease BMIs, making the controversial metric a “superb screening software,” in line with a research printed Monday within the journal Pediatrics.
The research provides to the long-standing debate about the usage of BMI, which has at all times been an imperfect proxy for assessing an individual’s physique fats, aka adiposity. Final yr, the American Medical Affiliation adopted a strongly worded coverage calling out the calculation’s “vital limitations” and “historic harms,” together with “racist exclusion,” as a result of its use is basically based mostly on white populations. However different specialists have pushed again, arguing that the maligned metric remains to be a fast, low-cost, software for assessing the well being and dangers of sufferers.
BMI, calculated by dividing an individual’s weight in kilograms by their peak in meters squared, has lengthy been used as a shorthand manner of assessing an individual’s adiposity. In youngsters, excessive BMIs are related to heart problems dangers later in life. However, the metric may also be deceptive. As a result of it’s based mostly solely on weight and peak, it doesn’t distinguish between fats and lean mass. As such, athletes with comparatively giant quantities of lean muscle mass can simply have BMIs that put them within the classes of getting obese or weight problems, whereas these with little lean mass however excessive fats mass can nonetheless have BMIs in a standard vary. BMI additionally doesn’t inform clinicians something about physique fats distribution, which might be necessary for well being dangers. And analysis has discovered that the connection between BMI and adiposity can differ by race and ethnicity. As an illustration, on the identical BMI, Black youngsters are inclined to have much less adiposity than white youngsters.
Amid the continued debate about BMI, David Freedman, a retired scientist from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, together with colleagues, regarded on the relationship between BMI and adiposity in 6,928 youngsters and youths (ages 8 to 19 years outdated) within the US. For the research, the researchers additionally had dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry measurements, a gold commonplace for physique composition that measured fats mass and lean mass in every of the youths. With that information, the researchers not solely knew the children’ BMIs but in addition their fats share (fats mass divided by weight), their fats mass index (fats mass divided by peak in meters squared), and their lean mass index (lean mass minus bone mineral, divided by peak in meters squared).
For the comparisons, the researchers thought-about “excessive BMI” to be at or above the ninety fifth percentile of the CDC progress charts, which can also be usually used as a cutoff for weight problems. Based mostly on these progress curves, which had been first developed in 1977, about 20 p.c of youngsters within the research had a excessive BMI.
The researchers discovered that having a excessive BMI was extremely predictive of getting a excessive fats mass index, whereas it was much less predictive of fats share and lean mass index. These with a excessive BMI had been 29 occasions extra more likely to have a excessive fats mass index (FMI), whereas they had been solely 15 occasions extra more likely to have a excessive lean mass index (LMI). “[B]ecause a excessive BMI is extra strongly associated to excessive ranges of FMI than LMI, it’s a good screening software for top adiposity,” Freedman and colleagues wrote.
In an accompanying commentary by Jaime Moore and Stephen Daniels, each of Youngsters’s Hospital Colorado and the College of Colorado in Aurora, the surface specialists supported the continued use of BMI in pediatrics. “General, on the premise of those outcomes, pediatricians can really feel assured that identification of elevated BMI (≥ninety fifth percentile) continues to be an efficient option to display screen for elevated adiposity,” they wrote. Nonetheless, they notice that calculating BMI is only a “first step.”
Assessing what a BMI means for every affected person ought to contain a “person-centered” strategy that accounts for well being historical past and different testing, they write. “Additional, therapy objectives must be centered on well being and quality-of-life outcomes, versus a quantity or percentile on a progress chart.”
The outcomes of the pediatric research are just like a research on adults printed final yr in Scientific Reviews. In that research of over 18,000 adults, researchers additionally checked out BMI and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry measurements. They discovered, usually, that BMI is an effective indicator for adiposity assessed by the gold-standard measurement, however the relationship was stronger for girls than males, youthful adults than older adults, and for white, Black, and Hispanic sufferers than Asian sufferers.
