Originais August 01, 2008 August 01, 2008

Body mass index, waist circumference and skinfolds for predicting lipid abnormalities in 11 years old children

DOI: 10.1590/S0004-27302008000600012

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the predictive capacity of Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist Circumference (WC) and Triceps Skin Folds (TSF) to diagnose of lipid abnormalities and to suggest cutoff points for these measures in order to identify this disease in children. METHODOLOGY: It was measured the BMI, WC, TSF and lipid profiles of 374 schoolchildren (11,25 ± 0,28 years) from the public education system of Santa Maria, RS, Brazil. Area under the ROC curve (95%CI), sensitivity, specificity and predictive values were analyzed in order to identify the ideal cutoff points. RESULTS: The anthropometric variables only exhibited diagnostic capacity for TG among the girls and CT and LDL-C for the boys. CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that a BMI of 19.3 kg/m² is a diagnostic value for abnormal TG levels in females and for abnormal CT and LDL-C among males. Elevated concentrations of CT and LDL-C can also be diagnosed in boys using cut-off values of WC > 65.7 cm and TSF > 21.0mm.