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?

ALBERT C. HERGENROEDER, MD
Baylor College of Medicine Adolescent Medicine 6621 Fannin Houston, TX 77030

Am J Dis Child. 1991;145(9):972.

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

Sir.—The discussion on the percentile curves of body-mass index (BMI) by Hammer et al¹ alerts the pediatrician to another method of getting more involved in clinical nutrition. Pediatricians see a significant amount of nutritional problems, especially obesity, and can apply these curves to help improve the patient's weight per height. However, the authors hedge on the diagnosis of obesity by saying "... we have found the 95th percentile BMI to be a conservative cutoff point for defining obesity in childhood." There are better criteria for defining obesity, especially for adolescents. These can be extracted from the National Center for Health Statistics² and were recently reprinted.³ Using these tables for ages 12 to 17 years, the ideal body weight can be estimated, and obesity can be defined as greater than 20% above the ideal body weight. We recommend that clinicians post these tables in their offices and refer . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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