About the relationship of some anthropometric indices with the bioimpedance assessment of relative fat mass in children and adolescents

Abstract

Introduction. The study of adiposity in children and adolescents is an important issue in the era of the global epidemic of obesity. Body mass index is the most common, but not the only body fat index. There are also indexes based on waist and hip circumferences. The purpose of this work is to analyze the age variability and correlation between various anthropometric indices and bioimpedance estimates of the percentage of body fat in children and adolescents.

Materials and methods. We analyzed the data of children and adolescents of both sexes 7-17 years old, 1885 boys and 1453 girls, collected in the course of cross-sectional anthropological surveys of schoolchildren in Moscow, Arkhangelsk and the Arkhangelsk region. Body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), hip-to-height ratio (HHtR) were calculated. The percentage of fat mass (% FM) was obtained by bioimpedance with the ABC-01 “Medas” device. Correlation analysis was used to assess the relationship between indices and %FM.

Results and discussion. The paper analyzes the age-related variability of height and weight, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, WHR, WHtR, HHtR and % FM in children and adolescents of both sexes. Age-related changes in % FM have clear sex differences. In girls, during puberty, there is an accumulation of fat mass, while in boys – its decrease. Body weight, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, HHtR increase in the process of growth, WHR and WHtR decrease. For all indicators, except for WHR, in boys and girls in younger age groups, correlations with % FM are high and decrease with age, reaching average values. While the correlations of WHR with %FM are weak in all studied age groups.

Conclusion. Based on the analysis performed, it is shown that body mass, waist circumference, hip circumference, BMI, WHtR, HHtR are good predictors of relative body fat mass, they significantly correlate with % FM, while WHR correlates very weakly. © 2023. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.

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