BMI Test may Not Identify All Obese Children

Researchers at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota have warned that BMI test may not be completely accurate after finding that the test may fail to identify all those with excess fat. The researchers conducted a review of over 37 studies involving more than 53,500 patients between 4 and 18 years of age. They compared the results of the BMI test in identifying excess body fat with other techniques such as skin-fold thickness measurements and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and found that while BMI test rarely labeled healthy children as obese, it is only 73 percent accurate which means that it fails to identify around 27 percent of obese children.

“Our research raises the concern that we very well may be missing a large group of children who potentially could be at risk for these diseases as they get older. We hope our results shine a light on this issue for physicians, parents, public health officials and policymakers”, lead author of the study, Asma Javed said.

Source-Medindia