Comparison of body mass index and fat percentage criteria classification of 7-13 year-old rural boys in South Africa
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Date
2020Author
Van Gent, Maya
Pienaar, Anita
Noorbhai, Habib
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Abstract
Background: The aim of this paper was to investigate whether BMI and fat percentage classification criteria, would
classify a sample of 7–13 year old boys from a rural background in similar nutritional categories.
Methods: A cross-sectional study with a stratified random sampling included 601 rural boys (7–13 years old). Fat
percentage criteria classification and BMI were calculated and compared. Maturity status, and age at peak height
velocity (PHV) were indirectly determined. Statistical techniques included descriptive statistics, Pearson product
correlation coefficients, the Kappa agreement test and the McNemar’s test. The level of statistical significance was
set at p ≤ 0.05.
Results: All age groups presented with statistically significant high correlations between BMI and fat percentage,
and low to medium correlations between fat percentage and maturity age (MA). Measurement of agreement
between BMI and fat percentage classifications showed poor to fair agreements for all age groups, with the
exception of the eight-year old group which presented a moderate agreement.
Conclusions: Classifications based on BMI and fat percentage, results in different classifications for the same
population. Until further research has been done to determine the best classification for nutritional status, it is
recommended that both classification methods be used for more accurate classification of nutritional status.
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10394/36480https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-020-02419-9
https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-020-02419-9
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- Faculty of Health Sciences [2386]