Background: Childhood obesity is becoming more prevalent, associated with a variety of adverse consequences which leads to adulthood obesity. Although diagnosis is usually made by body mass index, there is neither a cutoff point for the percentage body fat nor abdominal circumference. The aim of this study was to identify each cutoff point for both measures. Methods: The measurement of height, weight, abdominal circumference and percentage body fat was performed through manual assessment and bioelectrical impedance analysis for 4,242 subjects aged 11 in Gunpo City, South Korea. The cutoff point for body fat percentage and abdominal circumference is set to maximize the sum of sensitivity and specificity for detecting obesity and overweight using the Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve. Results: The mean percentage body fat was 13.6±6.9% for boys and 19.4±5.3% for girls. The mean abdominal circumference of boys was 68.0±9.1 cm, and that of girls was 64.3±7.7 cm. The cutoff point of percentage body fat for obesity was 21.8% in boys and 24.5% in girls. The prevalence of obesity was 15.2%, 16.7% for males and females, respectively. The abdominal circumference cutoff for obesity was 76.9 cm in boys and 70.7cm in girls. Based on that, the prevalence of obesity was 19.7% for boys and 20.0% for girls, which was higher than what was identified by body mass index, as in the case of body fat percentage. Conclusion: The cutoffs of body fat percentage and abdominal circumference in one city of Gyeonggi Province were lower than those suggested in the previous studies. (J Korean Acad Fam Med 2008;29:492-498)
Background : There are different opinions on whether the percentage of dietary fat is associated with the development of obesity and on it's treatment. In this country, dietary fat intake has been smaller compared to the Western countries. The purpose of this study was to find whether intake of dietary fat is related to percentage body fat in obese adults cross-sectionally.
Methods : Nutrient intake form 24-hour dietary recall and percent body fat from bioelectrical impedance method were measured in 51 obese adults. Total energy intake was associated with intake of dietary fat and body size. Thus, the association of intake of dietary fat and three types of fat with percentage body fat were examined after adjustment for total energy intake by using 4 statistical models (standard multivariate model, and nutrient residual model, energy-partition model, and multivariate nutrient density model).
Results : In all of these models, the results for types of fat and total fat showed similar results. Higher intake of total fat, saturated and polyunsaturated fat was associated with increased percentage body fat, while higher intake of monounsaturated fat was associated with decreased percentage body fat.
Conclusion : We found positive association between dietary intake of fat and percentage body fat in obese adults. Our results suggest that reducing fat intake would be a helpful way to prevent and treat obesity in adults.