Nutritional evaluation of adolescents: usefulness of anthropometric indicators in the diagnosis of obesity.

The results of body measurements and several anthropometric indices in the detection of obesity of 351 adolescents aged 15 to 19 years attending the preuniversities in Havana are presented. Body weight and height values were between the 50th and 75th percentiles of the Cuban national norms while those of the triceps and subscapular skinfolds were between the 90th and 97th percentiles. The high correlation between the two relative body weight indices and the sum of the three skinfolds evidenced the value of these indices in field studies. The study showed that determining the incidence of obesity remained a problem as it depended on the anthropometric indicators and the cutoff points that were used and which resulted in values ranging from 9.6% to 53.7%.