The Utility of a New Index for Adiposity among Pre-school Children.

Obesity in children is a cause for concern because it may predict adult obesity and increased risk of coronary heart disease in adult life. Adiposity in preschool children is measured by different conventional indices. The aim of the present study was to measure the indicators of abdominal adiposity - waist circumference (WC), waist-hip ratio (WHR), waist-height ratio (WHTR), conicity index (CI) and a newly proposed body mass abdominal index (BMAI), and to assess the relationship of these with overall adiposity as measured by body mass index (BMI). The study was conducted on 2,016 rural pre-school children (930 boys and 1,086 girls), aged 3-5 years from randomly selected 66 Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) centres in the Nadia District of West Bengal, India. Results showed significant correlations for all adiposity measures with BMI in both sexes. A noteworthy point was that the correlations were strongest (p< 0.01) with BMAI (boys: r = 0.856, girls: r = 0.868, sex-combined: r = 0.863). Results of linear regression of adiposity measures with BMI revealed that BMAI had the strongest significant impact (t = 76.729) on BMI. Moreover, this new index accounted for 74.5% of variations in BMI. In conclusion, our results provide evidence for the use of body mass abdominal index (BMAI) as a good indicator of overall adiposity (BMI). More studies should be undertaken including its validation with other direct measures of adiposity.