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Prediction equations for body-fat percentage in Indian infants and young children using skinfold thickness and mid-arm circumference
Sen, Bandana; Bose, Kaushik; Shaikh, Saijuddin & Mahalanabis, Dilip
Abstract
The objective of the study was to develop prediction equations for fat-mass percentage in infants in In-dia based on skinfold thickness, mid-arm circumference, and age. Skinfold thicknesses and mid-arm cir-cumference of 46 apparently-healthy infants (27 girls and 19 boys), aged 6-24 months, from among the urban poor attending a well baby clinic of a hospital in Kolkata were measured. Their body-fat percent-age was measured using the D 2 O dilution technique as the reference method. Equations for body-fat per-centage were developed using a stepwise forward regression model using skinfold thicknesses, mid-arm circumference, and age as independent variables, and the body-fat percentage was derived by D 2 O dilu-tion as the dependent variable. The new prediction equations are: body-fat percentage=-69.26+5.76ΧB-0.33ΧT 2 +5.40ΧM+0.01ΧA 2 for girls and body-fat percentage=-8.75+3.73ΧB+2.57ΧS for boys, where B=biceps skinfold thickness, T=triceps skinfold thickness, and S=suprailiac skinfold thickness all in mm, M=mid-arm circumference in cm, and A=age in month. Using the D 2 O dilution technique, the means (SD) of the cal-culated body-fat percentage were 17.11 (7.25) for girls and 16.93 (6.62) for boys and, using the new predic-tion equations, these were 17.11 (6.25) for girls and 16.93 (6.02) for boys. The mean of the differences of paired values in body-fat percentage was zero. The mean (SD) of the differences of paired values for body-fat percentage derived by the D 2 O technique and the new equations, applied on an independent sample of 23 infants (11 girls and 12 boys) were -0.93 (6.56) for girls and 1.14 (2.43) for boys; the 95% confidence limits of the differences of paired values for body-fat percentage were -2.03 to +3.89 for girls and -0.26 to +2.54 for boys. Given that the trajectories of growth during infancy and childhood are a major risk factor for a group of diseases in adulthood, including coronary heart disease and diabetes, these predictive equations should be useful in field studies.
Keywords
Anthropometry; Body mass index; D 2 O dilution; Fat-mass; Infants; Mid-arm circumference; India
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