Body composition-derived BMI cut-offs for overweight and obesity in ethnic Indian and Creole urban children of Mauritius.

Body composition-derived BMI cut-offs for overweight and obesity in ethnic Indian and Creole urban children of Mauritius. Br J Nutr. 2020 Jan 06;:1-33 Authors: Ramuth H, Hunma S, Ramessur V, Ramuth M, Monnard C, Montani JP, Schutz Y, Joonas N, Dulloo AG Abstract It is increasingly recognized that the use of body mass index (BMI) cut-off points for diagnosing obesity and proxy measures for body fatness in a given population needs to take into account the potential impact of ethnicity on the BMI-Fat% relationship in order to avoid adiposity status misclassification. This relationship was studied here in 377 Mauritian school children (200 boys and 177 girls, aged 7-13 years) and belonging to the two main ethnic groups: Indian (South Asian descent) and Creole (African/Malagasy descent), with body composition assessed using isotopic deuterium dilution technique as reference. The results indicate that for the same BMI, Indians have more body fat (and less lean mass) than Creoles among both boys and girls: linear regression analysis revealed significantly higher body fat% by 4-5 units (p< 0.001) in Indians than in Creoles across a wide range of BMI (11.6-34.2 kg/m2) and body fat% (5-52%). By applying the Deurenberg's Caucasian-based equation to predict body fat% from WHO-defined BMI thresholds for overweight and obesity, and recalculating the equivalent BMI values using a Mauritian-specific equation, it is shown that the WHO BMI cut-offs...
Source: The British Journal of Nutrition - Category: Nutrition Authors: Tags: Br J Nutr Source Type: research