• Singap Med J · Jun 2012

    Comparative Study

    Comparison of the effectiveness of body mass index and body fat percentage in defining body composition.

    • Arvin Raj Goonasegaran, Fatin Nabila Nabila, and Nurul Shuhada Shuhada.
    • Melaka Manipal Medical College, Jalan Batu Hampar, Bukit Baru, Melaka 75150, Malaysia. koli1987@gmail.com
    • Singap Med J. 2012 Jun 1; 53 (6): 403-8.

    IntroductionBody mass index (BMI) has limited diagnostic performance due to its inability to discriminate between fat and lean mass. This study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of body fat percentage (BFP) against BMI in defining body composition.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted on students aged 17-30 years in Melaka, Malaysia. Basic anthropometric measurements were acquired using a manual weighing scale, measuring tape and a fixed stadiometer. BFP was calculated using the United States Navy formula. Data was tabulated and analysed using Epi Info and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software. Pearson's correlation coefficient and Kappa values were used. A p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.ResultsOut of the 490 subjects recruited, 43% of males and 24.6% of females were found to be overweight, while 14.3% of males and 7.8% of females were obese, when calculated using BMI. However, 8.9% of males and 22.8% of females were considered obese based on the BFP.ConclusionBFP plays a more important role in distinguishing between healthy and obese individuals, as it has a greater ability to differentiate between lean mass and fat mass compared to BMI.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…