Abstract
Background
BMI as a body weight indicator, may inadequately represent the biological effect of body fat on lipid profiles. This study aims to assess whether body fat indicators were superior to BMI for recognizing children with dyslipidemia.
Methods
A nationwide cross-sectional study involving 8944 pediatric participants aged 6–18 years. Measures of fat mass index (FMI), fat mass percentage (FMP), BMI, and four lipid profiles were obtained.
Results
Among boys, the standard multi-linear regression coefficients of FMI for TC, LDL-C, and TG were higher than those of BMI (P < 0.01), but not for HDL-C. Also, the prevalence ratios and area under curves (AUCs) of excess fat classified by FMI for specific abnormal lipid profiles (except for HDL-C) were greater than overweight classified by BMI. The AUCs for detecting children with abnormal TC, LDL-C, and TG of FMI-based excess fat were 3.9%, 5.6%, and 2.8% higher than those of BMI-based overweight, respectively, all P < 0.01. Among girls, the associations of BMI with lipid profiles were substantially similar to FMI. All these results were almost identical when FMP was used instead of FMI.
Conclusions
DXA measured body fat performs better than BMI in identifying abnormal lipid profiles in boys but not in girls.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the other investigators, the staff, and the participants of the CCACH study for their valuable contributions. The study was supported by grants from the “Twelfth Five Year Plan” of the China National Science and Technology (2012BAI03B03), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC1300101, 2016YFC0900602), and the Beijing Training Project for the Leading Talents in Science and Technology (2011LJ07).
China Child and Adolescent Cardiovascular Health (CCACH) Collaboration Group
Hong Cheng3, Guimin Huang3, Dongqing Hou3, Fangfang Chen3, Wenpeng Wang3, Feng Xiong5, Jinghui Sun6, Wenqing Ding7, Weili Yan8, Bo Xi9
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H.L., J.M., T.H., and Y.Y. conceptualized the study concept and design. J.M., J.L., Y.Y., and X.Z. conducted research; H.L., J.M., and P.X. analyzed the data; and H.L., J.M., T.H., and Y.Y. drafted the manuscript. All authors were involved in writing the paper and had final approval of the submitted and published versions.
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Li, H., Huang, T., Liu, J. et al. Body fat indicators perform better than body mass index in identifying abnormal lipid profiles in boys but not in girls. Pediatr Res 85, 617–624 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0287-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-019-0287-x
