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This study verified the accuracy of the international BMI references and the allometric BMI reference to diagnose obesity in children and adolescents from the USA. Data from 17 313 subjects were obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between the years 1999-2006 and 2011-2018. Fat Mass Index, Allometric Fat Mass Index and fat mass/fat-free mass were calculated. Receiver operating characteristic curve, AUC, sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio and negative likelihood ratio were estimated to evaluate the accuracy of the growth references for diagnosing obesity. The International Obesity Task Force, MULT BMI 17 years, MULT BMI 18 years and allometric BMI 19 years achieved the best sensitivity-specificity trade-off for boys, with sensitivities ranging from 0·92 to 0·96 and specificities of 0·94, with positive likelihood ratio of 15·51, 16·17, 13·46 and 18·01, respectively. The negative likelihood ratios were notably low, ranging from 0·04 to 0·08. In girls, the International Obesity Task Force, MULT BMI 17 years and MULT allometric BMI 17 years also demonstrated high sensitivity (0·95-0·97) and specificity (0·92), with positive likelihood ratio values of 11·54, 11·82 and 11·77, respectively and low negative likelihood ratio values (0·03-0·05). In summary, these international growth references presented satisfactory performance to diagnose obesity. However, the MULT growth reference performed better, and the MULT allometric BMI was the only indicator capable of detecting that girls have a higher proportion of fat mass than boys for the same index values. These findings suggest that the MULT growth reference may be a better tool to assess the nutritional status of children and adolescents internationally.

Objectives: To develop an allometric body mass index (ABMI) reference that adjusts the weight in relation to height, taking into account the changes during development (MULT ABMI reference), and to compare it with international BMI references., Methods: The MULT ABMI reference was constructed through the LMS method, calculated with 65 644 ABMI observations of 17 447 subjects aged 5-22 years, from the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, India, Peru, Vietnam, Portugal, and Brazil. The M, S, and L curves of the MULT ABMI reference were compared with the curves of the MULT, World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), International Obesity Task Force (IOTF), and Dutch Growth Study (DUTCH)., Results: The greater differences in the M curve between MULT ABMI and WHO, CDC, IOTF, DUTCH, and MULT BMI references were around puberty (138 to 150 months for boys; 114 to 132 for girls). MULT ABMI presented S values similar to IOTF and DUTCH BMI references for boys 60 to 114 months and then became higher, approaching the MULT BMI S values from 198 to 240 months. For girls the MULT ABMI S values were close to the IOTF, CDC, and DUTCH from 60 to 110 months, and then became higher, approaching the MULT BMI S values until 240 months., Conclusion: MULT ABMI presented an advantage in comparison to the existing BMI references because it takes into account the growth changes during puberty and is a new option to assess the nutritional status of multiethnic populations., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 de Oliveira et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The aim of the present study was to analyze the management organization of food and nutrition actions in the municipalities of Mato Grosso do Sul. This is a descriptive-exploratory study carried out in Mato Grosso do Sul, in which each municipal food and nutrition manager answered questions about performance, governance and financing profile. Data analysis applied frequency, chi-square test and decision tree tools. All cities were included (n=79). Most of the participants were female (92.4%), white (62%), nurses (45.6%) or nutritionists (36.7%). Financial management proved to be so incipient in the state since specific food and nutrition funding was neglected. The absence of a technical area in the municipality's organizational chart was consistent with the lack of knowledge of actions, goals and resource allocation. Their presence coincided with having formally appointed technical managers, municipal food and nutrition policy, goals and elaboration of specialized materials. The present study also proposed a decision tree pointing that having a nutritionist in the team led to a positive result. The failures found in this study partly clarify the causes of the unsettling situation in the state. Our findings can support the creation of intervention strategies.

Introduction: Obesity has increased in Brazil for all age groups. Overweight at the end of adolescence indicates a high probability of unhealthy weight in adulthood., Objective: To describe anthropometric data of the National Adolescent School-based Health Survey (PeNSE) 2015 and its distribution according to geographic and socioeconomic strata., Methods: Data from the PeNSE 2015 was used. The analysis sample consisted of adolescents aged 11 to 19 years old from public and private schools with available anthropometric data. Nutritional status was classified according to the body mass index, with reference values proposed by the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF). The prevalence estimates of underweight and overweight and their respective standard errors were presented. The association between anthropometric indicators and demographic or social characteristics of adolescents was estimated by odds ratio, and the respective 95% confidence intervals were presented., Results: The prevalence of underweight was less than 3%. Elevated prevalence of overweight was observed in adolescents from the South region, from the urban area, from the lowest fifths of income, and those who declared themselves to be black or indigenous. In general, the prevalence of overweight was higher among adolescents attending private schools., Conclusion: Overweight is more frequent among adolescents from low-income strata. Besides being an indicator of nutritional status, overweight may indicate social inequality in Brazil.

To describe the nutritional status and the environmental and health conditions of the Pataxó children from five villages of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Among the under 10 years old, weight and height/length were classified according to the growth references of World Health Organization. Questionnaires evaluating environmental conditions of the households and health conditions of under 5 years old were based in the First National Survey of Indigenous People's Health and Nutrition. Among the 70 children evaluated (93.3%), 34 were under 5 years old. Nutritional deficits were not observed and overweight was registered for 11.4% of the children. Most of the children (74.3%) lived in households with electric energy, 95% in households with toilets and 52.9% in households that threw waste in septic tanks. Six or more antenatal appointments were reported by 82.4% of the mothers of the under five years old and 91.2% started the antenatal appointments within the first trimester of pregnancy. Among the causes of hospitalizations in the previous 12 months (23.5%), only one was due to diarrhea and none to respiratory infection. Universal coverage was observed for the majority of the vaccines. The absence of nutritional deficits among the Pataxó children may be associated to better housing and sanitation conditions and coverage of basic childhood health actions when compared to the conditions reported by the First National Survey of Indigenous People's Health and Nutrition and related studies with other specific indigenous peoples. The current study aims to back discussions and measures to improve the nutritional status of indigenous children in Brazil.

The study aims to describe body phenotypes estimated by multivariate technique for the assessment of nutritional status in adolescence during the process of sexual maturation. The sample consisted of 833 schoolchildren 10 to 15 years of age, selected by complex sampling in Piracicaba, São Paulo State, Brazil. Body phenotypes were defined by principal components analysis (PCA) based on anthropometric data (body mass, height, skinfolds, and waist circumference), body composition (phase angle measurement by bioelectric impedance), biochemical parameters (triglycerides, glucose, total/LDL cholesterol ratio, hemoglobin), and sexual maturation (self-classification of stages of pubic hair and breasts or genitals). Body phenotypes were: P1adiposity, characterized by a positive association with the variables skinfolds, body mass, and waist circumference; P2puberty, characterized by positive association with stages of pubic hair and breasts in girls or genitals in boys, height, and age; P3biochemical, characterized by positive association with cholesterol, triglycerides, and glucose; and P4muscular, characterized by positive association with phase angle and hemoglobin and negative association with glucose. Only P1adiposity showed a strong association with body mass index, and there was independence between P1adiposity and P2puberty. Our results highlight the independence between biochemical parameters, anthropometry, body composition, and sexual maturation. Body phenotypes can provide the basis for calculating scores on likelihood of obesity based on anthropometric variables and overcoming ambiguity with the use of body mass.