Adolescent obesity by different growth charts and its efficacy with central adiposity among school-age children in Mumbai

Abstract

Adolescent obesity can be defined using various age- and sex-specific growthcharts. In addition to general obesity, central adiposity is also crucially important. This paperaims to study the efficacy of central adiposity with general obesity using different growthcharts recommendations. A cross-sectional study was conducted among school-age children inMumbai. Anthropometric data were obtained from 1349 adolescents aged 9–15 years. Growthcharts of Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP), International Obesity Task Force (IOTF), andWorld Health Organization (WHO) were used to classify overweight and obese status amongeach of the participants. Central obesity indices such as the waist circumference (WC), thewaist to height ratio (WHtR), and the waist to hip ratio (WHR) were calculated. The efficacy ofeach of central obesity indices was checked with overweight and obesity status. The receiversoperating characteristics curves were drawn to check the efficacy of central obesity indices.According to IAP, IOTF, and WHO chart, the prevalence rates of overweight and obese amongthe sampled adolescents were 35.9%, 27.0%, and 25.0%, respectively, while, 26.5%, 26.3%,and 31% were found to be centrally obese as per WC, WHtR, and WHR, respectively. Thevalues of area under curve for WC and WHtR were found between 0.857 and 0.942 for all threemethods, while the corresponding values were between 0.611 and 0.689, indicating that WHRis a less robust indicator. We conclude that the central obesity status appears to be an efficientmeasure to identify the general obesity status irrespective of growth chart recommendations.WHtR and WC are found to be more robust indicators of general obesity.