Standard definition of child overweight and obesity worldwide

doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7269.1158

BMJ 2000;321:1158 ( 4 November )

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Standard definition of child overweight and obesity worldwide

Authors' standard compares well with WHO standard

Young Chinese people in Hong Kong are not representative of those in China

Body mass index is harder to interpret in children than adults

Reanalysis suggests questionable validity of new definition during puberty

Authors' standard compares well with WHO standard

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Different standards have been proposed to define overweight and obesity in childhood, and as a result it is difficultto compare published results. An international standard is usefulfor making international comparisons and monitoring the globalepidemic of obesity. The new standard proposed by Cole et al (theInternational Obesity Task Force standard) meets this demand.¹By contrast, the World Health Organization recommended using thesex-age specific body mass index 85th centiles derived from datafrom the United States' first national health and nutrition examinationsurvey collected in 1971-4 to define adolescent overweight forinternational use. ² ³

Using data from large nationwide surveys from China (1991 China health and nutrition survey), Russia (1992 Russian longitudinalmonitoring survey), and the United States (third national healthand nutrition examination survey, 1988-94), we compared Cole etal's and the World Health Organization standards to assess overweightin children (aged 6-9) and adolescents (10-18). These three . . . [Full text of this article]

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Establishing a standard definition for child overweight and obesity worldwide: international survey: Tim J Cole, Mary C Bellizzi, Katherine M Flegal, and William H Dietz
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