Background Low physical activity and a sedentary lifestyle are contributing to overweight/obesity in children. This study aims to explore relationships between out of school physical activity, sedentary lifestyle and socioeconomic status indicators with children's weight status and adiposity. Methods Five hundred twenty-two children of ages 5 to 12 years were randomly selected in a school-bas...

Background: Obesity, a growing epidemic, is a preventable risk factor for cardiometabolic diseases. Obesity and cardiometabolic diseases affect Hispanics and African Americans more than non-Hispanic Caucasians. This study examined the relationship among race/ethnicity, obesity diagnostic measures (body mass index, waist circumference, subscapular and triceps skinfold thickness), and cardiometab...

AIM To monitor the growth of 5 to 11 year old English and Scottish children from 1972 to 1994. No similar data are available from any other study. DESIGN Mixed longitudinal. SUBJECTS In England 7000 children were sampled in the first year, falling to 5000. In Scotland the original sample was 2000 but this was enlarged later to 3500. MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS Height, weight, weight for hei...

Measurement of body composition is an important part of any assessment of health or fitness. Hydrostatic weighing is generally accepted as the most reliable method for the measurement of body fat content, but is inconvenient. Electrical impedance analysers have recently been proposed as an alternative to the measurement of skinfold thickness. Both these latter methods are convenient, but give v...

BACKGROUND Body mass index (BMI) is widely accepted in determining obesity. Skinfold thickness measurements have been commonly used to determine percentage of body fat. HYPOTHESIS The authors hypothesize that because BMI does not measure fat directly but relies on body weight alone, a large percentage of athletic adolescents will be misclassified as obese by BMI. DESIGN Cross-sectional stud...

The present study investigated the validity, reliability, objectivity, and practicability of methods with skinfold caliper (SF), ultrasound (US), bioelectrical impedance (BI), and sulfur hexafluoride (SHD) using identical subjects, and evaluated comprehensive usefulness by comparing selected methods or equations. In examining validity, underwater weighing (UW) was employed to obtain the criteri...

OBJECTIVE An accurate assessment of the nutritional status of an infant at birth is very important, since it provides information on early identification of pathological events related to intrauterine growth acceleration or retardation. Anthropometric ratios such as weight/length and mid-arm circumference/head circumference may be used as alternative tools for this purpose. The main objective o...

Background: Skinfold-thickness measurements are commonly obtained for the indirect assessment of body composition. Objective: We developed new skinfold-thickness equations by using a 4-compartment model as the reference. Additionally, we compared our new equations with the Durnin and Womersley and Jackson and Pollock skinfold-thickness equations to evaluate each equation’s validity and precisio...

BACKGROUND The role of physical activity in preventing obesity during adolescence remains unknown. We examined changes in activity in relation to changes in body-mass index (BMI) and adiposity in a cohort of 1152 black and 1135 white girls from the USA, who were followed up prospectively from ages 9 or 10 to 18 or 19 years. METHODS BMI and sum of skinfold thickness were assessed annually, whe...

BACKGROUND The loss of muscle mass is associated with aging. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of resistance training and detraining on muscle mass in elderly women. METHODS Twenty post-menopausal women aged ≥50 years old were enrolled. Matching for age, they were randomly assigned into control and resistance training group (RT). The intervention consisted of three sets of 10...