Correlations among adiposity measures in school-aged children.

Area of Science:

• Pediatric endocrinology
• Human body composition
• Childhood obesity research

Background:

• Assessing pediatric adiposity is crucial for health monitoring.
• Dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is a gold standard but often impractical in clinical and research settings.
• Identifying accessible alternative adiposity measures in children is necessary.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the correlation between DXA-measured fat mass and alternative adiposity metrics in school-aged children.
• To determine the suitability of common measures like BMI and skinfolds as surrogates for DXA.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 1110 children (aged 6.5-10.9 years) in the Project Viva cohort.
• Calculated Spearman correlation coefficients between DXA and measures including BMI, skinfold thickness, circumferences, and bioimpedance.
• Assessed correlations for both total and trunk fat mass, as well as fat-free mass.

Main Results:

• DXA total fat mass showed high correlations with BMI (r(s)=0.83), bioimpedance (r(s)=0.87), and sum of skinfolds (r(s)=0.90).
• DXA trunk fat correlated strongly with waist circumference (r(s)=0.79).
• BMI also demonstrated high correlations with waist circumference (r(s)=0.86) and skinfolds (r(s)=0.79).

Conclusions:

• Body mass index (BMI) and sum of skinfolds are strongly correlated with DXA-derived fat mass in school-aged children.
• These measures serve as adequate surrogate indicators of relative adiposity when DXA is not practical.
• The findings support the use of BMI and skinfolds for routine pediatric adiposity assessment.