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Body mass index reference curves for the UK, 1990
T J Cole1, J V Freeman, M A Preece
1MRC Dunn Nutrition Centre, Cambridge.
Insights
New reference curves for Body Mass Index (BMI) in British children are now available, offering a better measure of weight for height than weight alone. These charts help assess childhood obesity from birth to 23 years.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Public Health
- Anthropometry
Background:
- Traditional stature and weight references for British children are updated.
- Weight alone is an insufficient metric for assessing childhood obesity.
- Body Mass Index (BMI) is increasingly used for pediatric obesity assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present new centile curves for Body Mass Index (BMI) in British children.
- To provide a reliable tool for assessing weight-for-height in pediatric populations.
- To establish reference data for childhood BMI from birth to 23 years.
Main Methods:
- Utilized Cole's LMS method for data analysis.
- Derived BMI centile curves from a large, representative sample of British children.
- Adjusted BMI distributions for skewness to enable precise percentile and SD score expression.
Main Results:
- Presented comprehensive BMI centile curves for British children (birth to 23 years).
- The derived charts allow for accurate BMI assessment and classification.
- Nine centiles are provided, identifying extreme weight-for-height categories.
Conclusions:
- The new BMI reference curves offer an improved method for assessing weight-for-height in children and adolescents.
- These charts are valuable tools for clinical practice in identifying and monitoring childhood obesity.
- The updated references support public health initiatives related to pediatric weight management.
Abstract:
Reference curves for stature and weight in British children have been available for the past 30 years, and have recently been updated. However weight by itself is a poor indicator of fatness or obesity, and there has never been a corresponding set of reference curves to assess weight for height. Body mass index (BMI) or weight/height has been popular for assessing obesity in adults for many years, but its use in children has developed only recently. Here centile curves for BMI in British children are presented, from birth to 23 years, based on the same large representative sample as used to update the stature and weight references. The charts were derived using Cole's LMS method, which adjusts the BMI distribution for skewness and allows BMI in individual subjects to be expressed as an exact centile or SD score. Use of the charts in clinical practice is aided by the provision of nine centiles, where the two extremes identify the fattest and thinnest four per 1000 of the population.