Evaluation of BMI Growth Charts for Children Living with Severe Obesity

Introduction: Growth charts were not designed to monitor children and adolescents with severe obesity. We evaluate three commonly used international references and their implications for children with severe obesity and develop a BMI growth chart for children with severe obesity, which we call "Reference-point BMI from adjusted World Health Organization (WHO) population" (R-BMI). Method: Growth charts from the WHO, International Obesity Task Force, and CDC were reviewed regarding population, statistical method, and cut-offs. We created the R-BMI chart from the WHO population, with adapted adjustment and reference-point cut-offs, and the layout was updated for better readability. Moreover, an interactive web app was developed for this project at the following link https://child-bmi.serve.scilifelab.se/ with the purpose of visually comparing different BMI references for children with obesity. Results: Three different references for children with severe obesity, with corresponding adjustments, are presented to illustrate implications for researchers and clinicians. Furthermore, R-BMI is presented as a method attempting to address chart challenges related to the extreme BMI. The result is reference curves which share desirable features with established references, while avoiding undesirable curve behavior. Conclusions: Growth charts present challenges for children living with severe obesity, leading to varying approaches and implications of international references. The proposed R-BMI offers monitoring of children with severe obesity that can be used from birth to adulthood. It relates to adult BMI cut-offs and allows for a terminology, and it has a layout with the potential of highlighting changes which may otherwise go unnoticed.