Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Clinical Anthropometrics and Body Composition from 3-Dimensional Optical Imaging
06:48

Clinical Anthropometrics and Body Composition from 3-Dimensional Optical Imaging

Published on: June 7, 2024

BMI for age references for Japanese children--based on the 2000 growth survey

Noriko Kato1, Kayoko Sato, Hidemi Takimoto

  • 1Department of Health Promotion and Research, National Institute of Public Health, 2-3-6 Minami, Wako-shi, Saitama 351-0197 Japan. kato@niph.go.jp

Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health
|June 18, 2009
PubMed

Insights

This study establishes age and sex-specific body mass index (BMI) standards for Japanese children. These new BMI cut-offs help accurately identify overweight and obesity in this population.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatrics
  • Public Health
  • Anthropometry

Background:

  • Childhood obesity is a growing global concern.
  • Accurate assessment requires population-specific growth standards.
  • Existing standards may not reflect ethnic variations in body composition.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop age- and sex-specific Body Mass Index (BMI) standards for Japanese children.
  • To establish precise cut-off points for overweight and obesity in Japanese youth.
  • To provide a culturally relevant tool for pediatric health assessment.

Main Methods:

  • Population-based analysis of national BMI data from 2000.
  • Inclusion of a large cohort across all school levels (preschool to upper secondary).
  • Application of Cole's method for determining BMI centile curves and cut-off points.

Main Results:

  • Developed age- and sex-specific BMI centile curves for Japanese children.
  • Identified distinct overweight and obesity cut-off points compared to international standards (e.g., CDC 2000).
  • Observed differences attributed to ethnic variations in body composition.

Conclusions:

  • The developed BMI standards are crucial for accurate overweight and obesity assessment in Japanese children.
  • These findings highlight the importance of ethnicity in pediatric BMI evaluations.
  • The study provides a vital resource for public health initiatives targeting childhood obesity in Japan.

More Related Videos

Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study09:36

Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study

Published on: February 2, 2017

Scanning Skeletal Remains for Bone Mineral Density in Forensic Contexts07:56

Scanning Skeletal Remains for Bone Mineral Density in Forensic Contexts

Published on: January 29, 2018

Related Concept Videos

Population Growth00:57

Population Growth

Population size is dynamic, increasing with birth rates and immigration, and decreasing with death rates and emigration. In ideal conditions with unlimited resources, populations can increase exponentially, which plots as a J-shaped growth rate curve of population size against time. This type of curve is characteristic of newly-introduced invasive species, or populations that have suffered catastrophic declines and are rebounding.However, realistic environmental conditions limit the number of...
Drug Dosing: Infants and Children01:29

Drug Dosing: Infants and Children

Pediatric patient dosages diverge from adults due to disparities in body surface area, total body water, and extracellular fluid per kilogram of body weight. The dosing regimen considers the variations in pharmacokinetics and pharmacology across distinct age groups, encompassing preterm newborns, infants, young children, older children, and adolescents. Calculation of pediatric patient doses is predicated on determining body surface area, which exhibits a superior correlation with the child's...
Percentile01:18

Percentile

A percentile indicates the relative standing of a data value when data are sorted into numerical order from smallest to largest. It represents the percentages of data values that are less than or equal to the pth percentile. For example, 15% of data values are less than or equal to the 15th percentile. Low percentiles always correspond to lower data values. High percentiles always correspond to higher data values.Percentiles divide ordered data into hundredths. To score in the...
z Scores and Area Under the Curve01:17

z Scores and Area Under the Curve

z scores are the standardized values obtained after converting a normal distribution into a standard normal distribution. A z score is measured in units of the standard deviation. The z score tells you how many standard deviations the value x is above (to the right of) or below (to the left of) the mean, μ. Values of x that are larger than the mean have positive z scores, and values of x that are smaller than the mean have negative z scores. If x equals the mean, then x has a z score of zero.
Variation: Normal Distribution, Range, and Standard Deviation02:32

Variation: Normal Distribution, Range, and Standard Deviation

In the field of psychology, there are several ways to organize measurements of a trait, feature, or characteristic (i.e., variables). Qualitative data, such as ethnicity, can be tabulated into a frequency count to provide information about the proportion, as well as the variety of groups in a sample or population. On the other hand, researchers can perform a wider set of calculations on quantitative data. The mean, mode, and median, for instance, are central tendency measures to identify a...
Applications of Normal Distribution01:22

Applications of Normal Distribution

The normal distribution is a useful statistical tool. One of its practical applications is determining the door height after considering the normal distribution of heights of persons, such that many can pass through it easily without striking their heads. The normal distribution can also determine the probability of a person having a height less than a specific height.
The heights of 15 to 18-year-old males from Chile from 1984 to 1985 followed a normal distribution. The mean height is 172.36...