Overweight in Young Athletes: New Predictive Model of Overfat Condition

Abstract

The aim of the study is to establish a simple and low-cost method that, associated with Body Mass Index (BMI), differentiates overweight conditions due to a prevalence of lean mass compared to an excess of fat mass during the evaluation of young athletes. 1046 young athletes (620 male, 426 female) aged between eight and 18 were enrolled. Body composition assessments were performed with anthropometry, circumferences, skinfold, and bioimpedance. Overweight was established with BMI, while overfat was established with the percentage of fat mass: 3.5% were underweight, 72.8% were normal weight, 20.1% were overweight, and 3.5% were obese according to BMI; according to the fat mass, 9.5% were under fat, 63.6% were normal fat, 16.2% were overfat, and 10.8% were obese. Differences in overfat prediction were found using BMI alone or with the addition of the triceps fold (area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) for BMI = 0.867 vs. AUC for BMI + TRICEPS = 0.955, p < 0.001). These results allowed the creation of a model factoring in age, sex, BMI, and triceps fold that could provide the probability that a young overweight athlete is also in an overfat condition. The calculated probability could reduce the risk of error in establishing the correct weight status of young athletes.

The Impact of the Weight Status on Cardiovascular Parameters Related to Physical Effort in Young Athletes

“…Epidemiologically, the prevalence of overweight and obesity is in agreement with previous studies carried out on young athletic subjects of the same territory [23][24][25].…”

Physical Activity Levels and Related Energy Expenditure during COVID-19 Quarantine among the Sicilian Active Population: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey Study

“…In fact, for the recruitment of the sample, we used the website of the Regional Sports School of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) of Sicily and the snowball sampling method among the students of the Sport Sciences Faculty of the University of Palermo. It is widely recognized that BMI is a parameter that does not allow us to distinguish a prevalence of muscle mass or fat mass in overweight conditions [52]. In particular, the overweight level in some athletes is due to a greater muscle mass for the type of sport practiced (e.g., weightlifting, powerlifting, bodybuilding) [52].…”

“…It is widely recognized that BMI is a parameter that does not allow us to distinguish a prevalence of muscle mass or fat mass in overweight conditions [52]. In particular, the overweight level in some athletes is due to a greater muscle mass for the type of sport practiced (e.g., weightlifting, powerlifting, bodybuilding) [52]. This issue is taken into consideration for the assessment of the body composition of athletes during which, in order to determine the percentage of muscle mass and fat mass, other evaluations such as the Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA) are commonly used [52].…”

“…In particular, the overweight level in some athletes is due to a greater muscle mass for the type of sport practiced (e.g., weightlifting, powerlifting, bodybuilding) [52]. This issue is taken into consideration for the assessment of the body composition of athletes during which, in order to determine the percentage of muscle mass and fat mass, other evaluations such as the Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA) are commonly used [52]. Based on these premises, we suppose that the overweight group of our sample, being physically active, was composed of subjects with a greater muscle mass.…”

Maturity Related Differences in Body Composition Assessed by Classic and Specific Bioimpedance Vector Analysis among Male Elite Youth Soccer Players

“…Analyzing and monitoring body composition (BC) is an important topic in sports because of its influence on health status and physical performance [1][2][3]. In fact, an elevated fat mass percentage (FM%) negatively influences the quality of functional movement patterns, reducing physical performance in athletes [4][5][6].…”