Body mass index cutoffs for underweight, overweight, and obesity in South Korean schoolgirls.
OBJECTIVE
To establish BMI percentiles and cutoffs for underweight, overweight, and obesity in South Korean schoolgirls.


METHODS
A total of 1229 South Korean schoolgirls aged 8 to 18 years were randomly selected to complete a self-administered questionnaire. BMI charts and cutoffs were constructed after analyzing data from 1107 subjects. Percentile curves were established by the modified LMS method.


RESULTS
The percentiles for underweight, overweight, and obesity corresponding to BMI of 18.5, 23.0, and 25.0 kg/m2 at age 18 were the 13.0th percentile, the 77.8th percentile, and the 91.2nd percentile, respectively. The corresponding prevalences of underweight, overweight, and obesity were 12.1, 12.5, and 9.8%, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
We established for the first time, to our knowledge, new BMI cutoffs for ages 8 to 18 that corresponded to BMIs of 18.5, 23.0, and 25.0 kg/m2 for Asian adults designated by the International Obesity Task Force. These newly established BMI cutoffs might help to estimate the prevalence of overweight and obesity in Asian children.
Kim
Eunkyung
E
Department of Biomedical Sciences, National Institute of Health, 5 Nokbun-dong, Eunpyung-gu, Seoul 122-701, Korea.
Hwang
Ji-Yun
JY
Woo
Eun-Kyung
EK
Kim
Sung-Soo
SS
Jo
Sangmee Ahn
SA
Jo
Inho
I
D000293:Adolescent; D044466:Asian People; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001837:Body Weights and Measures / Q000592:standards*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D050177:Overweight; D015995:Prevalence; D013851:Thinness / Q000453:epidemiology*