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BMI-for-age compares well with both weight-for-stature measurements and
measures of body fat.
A study completed by researchers at CDC compared the performance of
BMI-for-age and weight-for-stature with fatness measured by dual energy
x-ray absorptometry (DXA), a direct measure of adiposity.
NHANES III data were used to test how well BMI-for-age predicts
underweight (below 15th percentile) and overweight (>85th percentile)
relative to the traditional weight-for-stature in children 2 to 19 years
old.
Both BMI-for-age and weight-for-stature performed equally well in
screening for underweight and overweight among children 3 to 5 years of
age.
For school-aged children (6 to 11 and 12 to 19 age groups),
BMI-for-age was slightly better than weight-for-stature in predicting
underweight and overweight.
Ratios of weight relative to stature such as BMI-for-age and
weight-for-stature may be used as indirect measures of overweight that
correlate with more direct measures.
BMI-for-age is significantly correlated with subcutaneous and total
body fatness in adolescents. It is not a measure of body fatness but
rather a proxy for body fat.
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