[Using equations for identifying and classifying children and adolescents' body fat].

OBJECTIVE Determining the correlation between equations for estimating body fat percentage (BFP) based on Slaughter's anthropometric equation, which deals with skinfold measurement, and Deurenberg's equations for predicting total percentage body fat (%BF) which use body mass index (BMI) results. METHODS This study used data concerning 1,341 children and adolescents aged seven to 15 years-old (564 boys and 777 girls). Slaughter and Deurenberg's equations were used for calculating BFP and the Wilcoxon test, Spearman correlation, Bland-Altman scatter plot and Kappa index were used for analyzing the data. RESULTS A high correlation was identified (>0.75); however, there was a statistically significant difference between BFP values obtained by both equations for males and females. The results also indicated slight agreement (k≤0.4) between percentage fat obtained from the equations used here. CONCLUSION Slaughter and Deurenberg's equations had little agreement in terms of fat percentage values they gave differing results at all body fat levels.