Overweight Children
Is Your Child Overweight? Use Bmi-for-age Calculator To Find Out
by Dave Davis
Common Body Mass Indicator, BMI Calculators are not enough to determine if your kid is overweight or underweight. You need a BMI-For-Age calculator that is designed specifically for children from 2 to 19 years old.
So what is BMI?
Much research has shown that BMI directly correlates with a person’s body fat. Since BMI is easy to calculate it is used all around the world to screen adults for weight related health risks. BMI is just your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters. So if you are 5 foot 10, 1.78 meters, tall and you weigh 190 pounds, 86.4 kg, then your BMI is 86.4 / (1.78 x 1.78) = 27.3; You can also calculate your BMI in English units using the following formula. Take your weight in pounds multiply by 703 and then divide by the square of your height in inches. So if you are 6 feet tall, 72 inches, and weight 200 pounds then you would take 200 x 703 / (72 x 72) = 27.1
What is percentile? How is it determined?
Percentile is the ranking of where your child stands compared to thousands of other kids the same age and sex as your child. So if your kid’s percentile is 75 then their BMI is higher than 75% of kids their age and gender. Also their BMI is less than 25% of the kids their age and gender.
How is BMI and Percentile interpreted for children and teens?
For kids under 20 years old their BMI along with their age and sex is used to determine their percentile. Their percentile is then used to determine their weight class as follows.0 to < 5 is underweight5 to < 85 is healther85 to < 95 is At Risk>= 95 is overweight
What is a healthy weight range for my child?
The healthy weight range for your child is the weight range that would put them in the 5th to less than the 85th percentile. You can determine the weights from a chart, iteratively using a Child/Teen BMI Calculator, or using a BMI calculator that automatically calculates the healthy range weights for you.
When is this method of screening a child for weight related problems inaccurate?
Percentile data only covers children >= 2 years and < 20 years old; BMI and thus percentile can be misleading if the child is very athletic with much muscle mass; BMI and thus percentile can be misleading if the child is over seven feet tall.
Why is childhood overweight considered a health problem?
Doctors are concerned about the rise of overweight children and youth because according to the CDC being overweight leads to the following health problems: Heart Disease, Type 2 Diabetes, Asthma, Sleep Apnea, and Social discrimination leading to low self-esteem. Additional studies have shown that overweight children and teens are more likely to become obese as adults.
What causes obesity and overweight?
Our bodies are very efficient at saving as fat any excess calories we consume that are not used by our muscles. Thus there are only two ways to get overweight. Either you are ingesting too many calories for the amount of activities you are doing or the amount of activities is too small to use up the amount of calories you are ingesting. The World Health Organization (WHO) says there are two reasons the problem is getting worse.
1) Global shift in diet towards increased intake of energy dense foods that are high in fat and sugars but low in vitamins, minerals, and micro nutrients. {Comment: We cannot blame the manufacturers of processed foods who have had to remove the vitamins, minerals, and micro nutrients in order to make their products last longer and they have increased the density of fats and sugars so will like the taste and buy their product.}
2) Trends towards decreased physical activity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many forms of work, changing modes of transportation, and increasing urbanization. {Comment: Many of us now drive our kids to school, or they take the bus when we use to walk to school. Also, no doubt urban life is much less active than rural life was in the past.}
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Dave Davis has written many articles on weight loss. For an online child BMI Calculator go to Child-Teen-BMI-Calculator. For information on how you can create your own perfect diet plan MyDietForWeightLoss.com