Identifying Overweight and Obese Children: Which Assessment Tool Is Most Accurate?

Authors

Claudia Sealey-Potts, University of North FloridaFollow
Zhiping Yu, University of North FloridaFollow
Colleen Alexander, University of North Florida
Catherine Christie, University of North FloridaFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-1-2015

Abstract

Selecting appropriate assessment measures that identify children at risk for overweight and obesity can be challenging. Practitioners and clinicians have used various anthropometric measures for decades, but evidence on which measure is most accurate needs to be elucidated. Data on the use of body mass index alone are inconclusive. Evidence on other simple and practical measures including waist and neck circumferences and waist-to-height ratio is gaining recognition and has been shown to have advantages over body mass index for identifying overweight and obese risk in children. Practitioners may need to use a combination of measures to obtain desirable outcomes.

Publication Title

Topics in Clinical Nutrition

Volume

30

Issue

2

First Page

143

Last Page

152

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1097/TIN.0000000000000028

ISSN

08835691

E-ISSN

15505146

Citation Information

Sealey-Potts, Yu, Z., Alexander, C., & Christie, C. (2015). Identifying Overweight and Obese Children: Which Assessment Tool Is Most Accurate? Topics in Clinical Nutrition, 30(2), 143–152. https://doi.org/10.1097/TIN.0000000000000028