Chung Sochung
Department of Pediatrics, Konkuk University Medical Center, Konkuk University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Ann Pediatr Endocrinol Metab. 2015 Sep;20(3):125-9. doi: 10.6065/apem.2015.20.3.125. Epub 2015 Sep 30.
Childhood obesity prevalence has been increased and known to be related to various diseases and mortality in adult and body mass index (BMI) has been widely used as a screening tool in children with obesity. It is important to understand what BMI is and its limitations. BMI is a measure of weight adjusted for height. Weight scales to height with a power of about 2, is the basis of BMI (weight/height(2)) as the scaling of body weight to height across adults provides powers rounded to 2. BMI has the advantage of a simple and noninvasive surrogate measure of body fat, but it has limitation in differentiating body fat from lean (fat free) mass and low-moderate sensitivity is problematic for clinical applications. Among overweight children higher BMI levels can be a result of increased either fat or fat-free mass. BMI could be divided into fat-free mass index and fat mass index. Monitoring of the changes in body composition is important as distinguishing changes in each component occur with rapid growth in adolescents as it is occur in concert with changes in the hormonal environment. Reference values for each body composition indexes and chart created with selected percentiles of a normal adolescent population could be helpful in growth assessment and health risk evaluation.
儿童肥胖患病率呈上升趋势，且已知与成人的各种疾病和死亡率相关，体重指数（BMI）已被广泛用作肥胖儿童的筛查工具。了解什么是BMI及其局限性很重要。BMI是一种根据身高调整的体重测量方法。体重与身高的平方成正比，这是BMI（体重/身高²）的基础，因为成年人中体重与身高的比例关系得出的幂约为2。BMI具有简单且无创的身体脂肪替代测量方法的优点，但在区分身体脂肪与瘦体重（无脂肪体重）方面存在局限性，且低至中度的敏感性在临床应用中存在问题。在超重儿童中，较高的BMI水平可能是脂肪或无脂肪体重增加的结果。BMI可分为无脂肪体重指数和脂肪量指数。监测身体成分的变化很重要，因为在青少年快速生长过程中，每个组成部分的变化是同时发生的，这与激素环境的变化相一致。每个身体成分指标的参考值以及根据正常青少年人群选定百分位数创建的图表，可能有助于生长评估和健康风险评估。
