Journal of Pediatric Neurological Disorders

Body Mass Index Among Youth

BMI, formerly called the Quetelet index, may be a measure for indicating nutritional status in adults. It is defined as a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of the person’s height in metres (kg/m2).The BMI ranges are based on the effect excessive body fat has on disease and death and are reasonably well associated with adiposity. BMI was developed as a risk indicator of disease; as BMI increases, so does the danger for a few diseases. Some common conditions related to overweight and obesity include: premature death, cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis, some cancers and diabetes.is also recommended for use in children and adolescents. In children, BMI is calculated as for adults and then compared with z-scores or percentiles. During childhood and adolescence the ratio between weight and height varies with sex and age, so the cut-off values that determine the nutritional status of those aged 0–19 years are gender- and age-specific. The cut-off points of the 2006 BMI-for-age reference for children aged 0–5 years for the diagnosis of overweight and obesity were set as the 97th and the 99th percentile, respectively. For those aged 5–19 years, overweight is defined as a BMI-for-age value over +1 SD and obesity as a BMI-for-age value over +2 SD.    

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