This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

WILLIAM H. DIETZ, JR, MD, PHD
New England Medical Center 171 Harrison Ave Boston, MA 02111

STEVEN L. GORTMAKER, PHD
Harvard University School of Public Health 677 Huntington Ave Boston, MA 02115

Am J Dis Child. 1988;142(2):121-122.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In Reply.—We demonstrated that the prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity increased by over 40% between 1965 and 1980. We defined obesity as a triceps skin-fold thickness equal to or greater than the 85th percentile for children and adolescents of the same age and sex studied during the National Health Examination Surveys Cycles 2 and 3. Dr Kashani, in his letter, and Dr Barness, in his editorial, commented on the validity of our diagnostic criteria for obesity. Furthermore, Dr Barness disparaged our use of the "pejorative term obese... for normal children."

We agree that the definition of obesity is crucial. In contrast to the use of obesity as a pejorative term by the general public, nutritional scientists have always relied on a dichotomous, statistically derived, and somewhat arbitrary definition of obesity.^1-3 An individual either is or is not obese, based on whether they are in the fattest 15% of the population, . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?