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New BMI Index
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/thehealthnews.html?in_article_id=361362&in_page_id=1797
Girls are naturally 60% fatter than boys by the age of 18, researchers have said.
A two-year study of almost 2,000 children aged 5-18 used a technique to measure both total body mass and body fat to see how fat levels changed as youngsters got older.
The researchers found that on average by the age of 18, 15.4% of boys' body mass was fat compared with 24.6% in girls.
It is hoped the new body fat reference curves, developed using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) technology, will help give more accurate indications of obesity than body mass index (BMI) which looks at weight compared to height.
Professor Andrew Prentice, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that currently around 25% of children could be misclassified as either overweight or of normal weight because BMI did not differentiate between fat and muscle.
The latest study, which is set to be published in the International Journal of Obesity, uses the terms "overfat" and "underfat" to highlight this difference.
Professor Prentice said, as it stood, a very fit and muscular youngster could be classified as obese, because BMI did not take into account the difference between fat and muscle. It would also be possible that someone who did not look particularly fat could be carrying excess fat and very little muscle, which BMI would not be able to detect.
"BMI has served us particularly well and has been enormously helpful in raising awareness of the obesity epidemic hitting our country. But we want to say we can go beyond that.
"BMI measures weight, it does not measure body fat and it is the body fat that is causing bio-activity, causing tissue damage and raising blood pressure and the risk of diabetes," Professor Prentice said.
Girls are naturally 60% fatter than boys by the age of 18, researchers have said.
A two-year study of almost 2,000 children aged 5-18 used a technique to measure both total body mass and body fat to see how fat levels changed as youngsters got older.
The researchers found that on average by the age of 18, 15.4% of boys' body mass was fat compared with 24.6% in girls.
It is hoped the new body fat reference curves, developed using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) technology, will help give more accurate indications of obesity than body mass index (BMI) which looks at weight compared to height.
Professor Andrew Prentice, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that currently around 25% of children could be misclassified as either overweight or of normal weight because BMI did not differentiate between fat and muscle.
The latest study, which is set to be published in the International Journal of Obesity, uses the terms "overfat" and "underfat" to highlight this difference.
Professor Prentice said, as it stood, a very fit and muscular youngster could be classified as obese, because BMI did not take into account the difference between fat and muscle. It would also be possible that someone who did not look particularly fat could be carrying excess fat and very little muscle, which BMI would not be able to detect.
"BMI has served us particularly well and has been enormously helpful in raising awareness of the obesity epidemic hitting our country. But we want to say we can go beyond that.
"BMI measures weight, it does not measure body fat and it is the body fat that is causing bio-activity, causing tissue damage and raising blood pressure and the risk of diabetes," Professor Prentice said.
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Comments
In terms of the topic, I'm always bloody underwieght on these things and there seems little I can do about it.