Prevalence of thinness in children and adolescents in the Seychelles: comparison of two international growth references

Abstract

BackgroundThinness in children and adolescents is largely under studied, a contrast with abundant literature on under-nutrition in infants and on overweight in children and adolescents. The aim of this study is to compare the prevalence of thinness using two recently developed growth references, among children and adolescents living in the Seychelles, an economically rapidly developing country in the African region.MethodsWeight and height were measured every year in all children of 4 grades (age range: 5 to 16 years) of all schools in the Seychelles as part of a routine school-based surveillance program. In this study we used data collected in 16,672 boys and 16,668 girls examined from 1998 to 2004. Thinness was estimated according to two growth references: i) an international survey (IS), defining three grades of thinness corresponding to a BMI of 18.5, 17.0 and 16.0 kg/m2 at age 18 and ii) the WHO reference, defined here as three categories of thinness (-1, -2 and -3 SD of BMI for age) with the second and third named "thinness" and "severe thinness", respectively.ResultsThe prevalence of thinness was 21.4%, 6.4% and 2.0% based on the three IS cut-offs and 27.7%, 6.7% and 1.2% based on the WHO cut-offs. The prevalence of thinness categories tended to decrease according to age for both sexes for the IS reference and among girls for the WHO reference.ConclusionThe prevalence of the first category of thinness was larger with the WHO cut-offs than with the IS cut-offs while the prevalence of thinness of "grade 2" and thinness of "grade 3" (IS cut-offs) was similar to the prevalence of "thinness" and "severe thinness" (WHO cut-offs), respectively.

Association of serum hs-CRP and lipids with obesity in school children in a 12-month follow-up study in Japan

“…The height and body weight rise markedly in children during their primary school years (ages 6-12) [25][26][27]. Body mass index (BMI) also substantially changes with age during childhood [28].…”

Trends in thinness prevalence among adolescents in ten European countries and the USA (1998–2006): a cross-sectional survey

“…Until 2007, when Cole et al (10) proposed international age-and sex-specific thinness cut-offs from 2 to 18 years to provide comparable prevalence rates of thinness, trends in thinness among children and adolescents had been seldom described (11) and the comparisons between countries had been difficult due to the use of several cut-off points (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, WHO and International Obesity Task Force growth references) and different terms (underweight, wasting, thinness, undernutrition), which have a different meaning in adults, adolescents and children (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) . In their paper, Cole et al 'tried to avoid potential confusion between the terms wasting and underweight in children by adopting the term thinness, which WHO uses to mean low BMI in adults and adolescents' and 'extended the definition to include low BMI for age in children, linked to the adult definition through the fulcrum of BMI 17 at age 18'.…”

Anthropometric Nutritional Status in Children from a School Community in Southern Brazil: Comparison with WHO-2007 Reference

“…If, on the one hand, the proportions of stature were significantly higher among boys, on the other hand, in the case of the proportions of excess of body weight, the girls showed significantly higher values. In other studies available in the literature important differences were also found between genders regarding the occurrence of stature and excess of body weight [13][14][15][16][17] . The differences observed in the proportions of stature deficit between boys and girls possibly can be explained due to the peculiarities observed regarding the biological sensitivity to environmental problems, especially of nutritional order.…”

“…Regard the values of body weight-for-height, the relative frequencies observed in the more elevated decile (17.7% of girls and 17.5% of boys) also approached two times more than the 10% expected, while in the lower decile, the relative frequencies observed did not outnumber the four percentages (3.3% of girls and 2.5% of boys) - Figure 1. Upon consulting the results of other studies, it was found that the greatest deficits in height and risk of overweight/obesity in young populations of regions in the process of development occur precisely at the time that precedes the beginning of the outbreak of maturityl [13][14][15][16][17] . This fact is explained based on the justification that, during this period of human development, there are significant changes related to physical growth, thus requiring proper and balanced provisions regarding short and long term to health, the purpose of the profile found in both nutritional indicators, highlights the importance of maintaining the actions aimed at the control of hunger and malnutrition in the population.…”