Weight-for-height indices as measures of adiposity in children

Area of Science:

• Pediatric endocrinology
• Human biology
• Nutritional science

Background:

• Accurate assessment of adiposity in children is crucial for monitoring growth and health.
• Existing weight-for-height indices are widely used but their effectiveness in capturing adiposity can vary.
• The triceps skinfold thickness is a common anthropometric measure of subcutaneous fat.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a novel weight-for-height index (q = w/h^lambda) optimized for correlating with triceps skinfold thickness.
• To determine if this optimized index provides a superior indirect measure of adiposity in children compared to existing indices.
• To explore the generalizability of optimized weight-for-height indices.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a sample of 1668 children aged 5-12 years.
• Employed an iterative procedure to estimate the optimal parameter lambda for the index q = w/h^lambda within specific age and sex categories.
• Calculated the correlation between the optimized index (q) and triceps skinfold thickness, comparing it to the standard Quetelet index (w/h^2).

Main Results:

• The optimal parameter lambda did not exhibit a simple variation across different age and sex categories.
• The correlation between the optimized index (q) and triceps skinfold thickness was only marginally better than that of the standard Quetelet index (w/h^2).
• A more general two-parameter index (w^alpha/h^beta) demonstrated nearly identical properties to the optimized single-parameter index.

Conclusions:

• No single weight-for-height index, including the optimized q = w/h^lambda, is generally useful for indirectly measuring adiposity in children.
• The standard Quetelet index (w/h^2) performs comparably to more complex, optimized indices for this purpose in the studied age group.
• Further research may be needed to identify more effective anthropometric measures for childhood adiposity.