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Dressed or undressed? How to measure children's body weight in overweight surveillance?

Laura Censi1, Angela Spinelli2, Romana Roccaldo1

  • 11Agricultural Research Council,Food and Nutrition Research Centre (CRA-NUT),Via Ardeatina 546,00178 Rome,Italy.

Public Health Nutrition
|January 31, 2014
PubMed

Insights

Measuring children

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Nutrition
  • Public Health Surveillance
  • Anthropometry

Background:

  • Accurate body weight measurement is crucial for nutritional surveillance systems.
  • Traditional methods require children to undress, potentially hindering participation.
  • The OKkio alla SALUTE protocol simplifies measurement by accounting for clothing weight.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the accuracy of the OKkio alla SALUTE (WOK) protocol for body weight measurement in children.
  • To compare BMI calculations and overweight/obesity prevalence using WOK versus standard underwear measurements (WWHO).
  • To assess the impact of the WOK protocol on the Italian nutritional surveillance system.

Main Methods:

  • Weight and height were measured twice: with clothing (WOK) and without (WWHO).
  • Clothing weight was estimated and subtracted from WOK measurements.
  • Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated for both methods.
  • Nutritional status was classified using International Obesity Task Force and WHO criteria.

Main Results:

  • The WOK protocol introduced a very small error in BMI calculation (0.005 kg/m²).
  • Agreement between WOK and WWHO in classifying overweight and obese children was very high (κ = 0.98).
  • The WOK method demonstrated excellent concordance with the standard method.

Conclusions:

  • The OKkio alla SALUTE protocol provides a minor error in BMI and nutritional classification for surveillance.
  • This simplified method significantly eases the measurement procedure for children and parents.
  • The WOK protocol is a viable and effective tool for childhood obesity surveillance.
Abstract

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