Sajal Kumar Biswas

Human organism needs movement and activity to grow, develop, and maintain health. Advances in modern technology, however, have almost completely eliminated the necessity for physical exertion in daily life. Physical activity is no longer a natural part of our existence. This lack of physical activity has reduced our ability to maintain a healthy body weight and body composition. Recommended body composition is a primary objective to achieve overall physical fitness and enhanced quality of life. Individuals at recommended body weight are able to participate in a wide variety of moderate to vigorous activities without functional limitations. A technique to determine thinness and excessive fatness is the Body Mass Index (BMI), which incorporates height and weight to estimate critical fat values at which the risk for disease increases. Scientific evidence indicates that there is a significant increase in the risk for disease when BMI exceeds 25. Individuals are overweight if their indexes lie between 25 and 30. BMI above 30 defined as Obese and below 20 as underweight. (Hoeger & Hoeger, 2004). Today, it is not only adults who lead physically inactive lifestyles, but also children and youth. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are now more people in the world who are overweight or obese (1 billion) than are hungry or underweight (800 million). With preferences for leisure activities that lack physical activity; living conditions, especially in urban areas, characterized by reduced space for children to play and to be physically active; and reduced time accorded to physical education in schools, serious concerns have been raised which have led to concerted efforts to reinforce the importance of sport and physical education in the community (WHO, 2002). Vikram et al. (2003) in his study showed that Asian Indians have excess cardiovascular risk at BMI values considered “normal” and therefore the definitions of “normal” ranges of BMI needed to be revised for Asian Indians. Indian adults are more prone to adiposity and central obesity at a lower BMI. Lower BMI cut-offs of 23 kg/m2 for overweight and 28 kg/m2 for obesity have been suggested for Asian adults (Snehalata et. al., 2003). There was a need to investigate BMI status of Indian children after the BMI cutoffs have been lowered. A study attempted to develop age and sex specific cutoffs for BMI to screen for Abstract: