Reference Centile Curves for Body Fat Percentage, Fat-free Mass, Muscle Mass and Bone Mass Measured by Bioelectrical Impedance in Asian Indian Children and Adolescents.

OBJECTIVE To create gender-specific percentile curves for percent body fat (%BF) by Bio electrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) for screening adiposity and risk of hypertension in Indian children and generate reference curves for percent fat-free mass (%FFM), muscle mass (%LM) and bone mineral content (BMC) by using bioelectrical impedance. DESIGN Secondary analysis of data from previous multicenter cross-sectional studies. SETTING Private schools from five regions of India. PARTICIPANTS A random sample of 3850 healthy school children (2067 boys) (5-17 yr) from private schools in five major Indian cities. METHODS Anthropometry, blood pressure (BP) and body composition were measured by bioelectrical impedance. Reference curves were generated by the LMS method. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES %BF, %FFM, %LM, BMC and BP. RESULTS Median %BF increased by 6% from 5 to 13 years of age and declined (around 2%) up to 17 years in boys. In girls, %BF increased by 8% from 5 to 14 years and thereafter declined by 3%. Based upon the risk of hypertension, the new cut-offs of 75th and 85th percentile of %BF were proposed for detecting over fatness and excess fatness in children. Median %FFM was 90% at 5 yrs and decreased till 12 years, and then showed a slight increase to 84% at 17 yrs in boys. In girls, it was 86% at 5 yrs and decreased till 15 yrs, and plateaued at 71.8% at 17 yrs. CONCLUSIONS Reference curves for percent body fat for Indian children would be useful to screen children for health risk in clinical set up.