COMPARISION BETWEEN QUÉTELET AND TREFETHEN BODY MASS INDEXES IN ESTIMATING NUTRITION OF CHILDREN IN SCHOOL AGE

Abstract

Introduction: Constantly various anthropometric methods have been developed in order to evaluate the nutritional status of adults, children and adolescents. Objective: This study aimed to assess similarities between the body mass index (BMI) of Quételet and Trefethen to estimate the nutritional status of children in school age. Methods: The sample consisted of 113 students (48 girls and 65 boys) aged between 10 and 15 years, in the city of Canoinhas/SC. Anthropometrics was collected by measuring body mass and height. With those, two types of BMI were calculated, as proposed by Quételet (1870) and as suggested by Trefethen (2013). To check the normality of the data the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was employed. Afterwards, the descriptive statistics were calculated. The Pearson correlation factor (r) was performed to verify similarities between the methods. The chi-square test was employed to find possible differences among the percentage frequencies. To analyze the level of similarity between the methods the Bland-Altman method was applied (1986). Results: We observed a strong and significant relation between the variables (r= 0.98, p= <0.001) with a confidence interval of (95% CI= 0.97 to 0.98) and using the Bland-Altman method (1986) can be seen that the variables analyzed showed consistencies between them. Conclusion: At the end of the study, it was found that the Quételet BMI and the Trefethen present similarities in estimating the nutritional status of schoolchildren.