Body mass index (BMI) is a calculation that uses a person’s weight and height to estimate how much fat that person stores. Doctors also use it to evaluate how appropriate a person’s weight is in relation to his or her height and age. As childhood obesity is a major health concern nowadays, such application of BMI in identifying children likely to be obese is especially useful. It therefore enables one to proactively overcome obesity, thereby reducing health issues among children.
Guide to Identifying Children With Obesity Potential
Upon identifying the BMI for your child, the doctor will plot this result on a chart alongside the results for other children of the same age and gender. This allows the doctor to track the child’s growth as the next measure is taken. Based on the chart, children who are at risk of becoming overweight are identified. Following this, this allows the doctors to prevent the potential obesity by altering their diets or recommending suitable exercise habits.
In comparison to adults, BMI is used differently for children. For adults, thresholds are set to identify whether one is underweight or overweight. For children, BMI percentiles are used to indicate how a child’s measurement is in comparison to other children of the same age and gender. For example, if a child has a BMI in the 55th percentile, this indicates that 55% of the children of the same age and gender (who have undergone the measurement process) have a lower BMI.
One important point to note is that BMI is not always an ideal indicator for obesity. For instance, a child with a large body or more muscle but not excessive fat can have a high BMI. In addition, a child can have a small body and a small BMI but yet has a large amount of body fat. Albeit BMI cannot serve as the exact indicator of body fat, children at or above the 95th percentile are deemed obese. As for those with BMI between 85th and 94th percentile, this is considered overweight. A BMI between the 5th and 85th percentile is considered to be in the healthy weight grade while those below 5th percentile is considered underweight. All said and done, if you have an intuition that you child is gaining weight or losing weight too fast, kindly inform your doctor about this.
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