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Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
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Which anthropometric measures best reflect neonatal adiposity?
L-W Chen1, M-T Tint2, M V Fortier3
1Department of Paediatrics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
International Journal of Obesity (2005)
|October 10, 2017
Summary
Simple newborn measurements like weight and weight-to-length ratio accurately reflect neonatal adiposity. These anthropometric measures are valuable for large epidemiological studies assessing fetal adipose accretion.
Area of Science:
- Neonatal physiology
- Body composition analysis
- Epidemiological research
Background:
- Accurate assessment of neonatal body composition is crucial for understanding fetal adipose accretion and its long-term effects.
- In large epidemiological studies, advanced body composition methods are often impractical due to cost and logistics.
- There is a need for simple anthropometric measures that reliably indicate neonatal adiposity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the correlation between various anthropometric measures and neonatal adiposity.
- To identify simple, cost-effective anthropometric indicators of neonatal body composition for large-scale studies.
Main Methods:
- A multiethnic Asian mother-offspring cohort in Singapore was studied.
- Standardized anthropometric measurements (weight, length, abdominal circumference, skinfolds) and derived indices (BMI, PI) were collected.
- Neonatal total adiposity was measured by air displacement plethysmography (ADP), and abdominal adiposity by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Main Results:
- Weight and weight/length showed strong correlations (r ≥ 0.7) with abdominal adipose tissue compartments measured by MRI.
- Weight, weight/length, BMI, and sum of skinfolds demonstrated moderate correlations (r ≈ 0.6-0.67) with total fat mass measured by ADP.
- Skinfold thickness showed potential for greater discriminative power for neonatal total body adiposity compared to other measures.
Conclusions:
- Simple anthropometric measures, particularly weight and weight/length, are strongly correlated with neonatal adiposity.
- Skinfold measurements may offer enhanced discriminative power for assessing total neonatal adiposity.
- These findings support the use of basic anthropometric measures in large epidemiological studies on fetal development and neonatal body composition.
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