Body mass index cut-offs for screening for childhood overweight and obesity in Indian children.

OBJECTIVE To develop age and sex specific cut offs for BMI to screen for overweight and obesity in Indian children linked to an adult BMI of 23 and 28 kg/m2 respectively, using contemporary Indian data. DESIGN Cross-sectional. SETTING Multicentric, School based. PARTICIPANTS 19834 children were measured from 11 affluent schools from five major geographical regions of India. Data were analyzed using the LMS method, which constructs growth reference percentiles adjusted for skewness. RESULTS Compared to the cut-offs suggested for European populations and those by the Indian Academy of Pediatrics 2007 Guidelines, the age and sex specific cut off points for body mass index for overweight and obesity for Indian children suggested by this study are lower. CONCLUSIONS Contemporary cross-sectional age and sex specific BMI cut-offs for Indian children linked to Asian cut-offs of 23 and 28 kg/m2 for the assessment of risk of overweight and obesity, respectively are presented.