Abstract

Childhood obesity is a global concern, with approximately 39 million children under five being overweight or obese worldwide in 2020. The Body Mass Index (BMI) includes lean mass and fat components of the body, which may differ in children with similar BMI. Recently proposed Body Adiposity Index (BAI) is an alternative to BMI and this index shows equivalence in paediatric populations (i.e. BAIp). The present cross-sectional study was done on 1240 preschool children (boys 625; girls 615) aged 2-5 years from 48 Integrated Child Development Scheme centres in Maynaguri Block, Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, India to evaluate childhood obesity and association between adiposity index and anthropometric variables to depict the adiposity. For this study various anthropometric measurements were recorded following standard methods. This study shows a significant sex difference was found in children’s height and weight with higher mean values for boys than girls. The correlation between BAIp and Waist Height Ratio (WHtR) was higher than for BMI, Body Mass Adiposity Index (BMAI) and Tri ponderal Mass Index (TMI) respectively. The correlation between BMI and BMAI was higher than BAIp, TMI and WHtR respectively. Research shows that good adiposity measures should have a strong relationship with BMI, which is an indicator of overall adiposity. The present study confirmed the existing hypothesis that BAIp, as a new index for children’s body fatness measures, works with acceptable accuracy, suggested researchers. It must be mentioned that the advantage of BAIp over other anthropometric measures of adiposity should be validated by other direct adiposity measures.

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