Petting kittens is more fun than this article

Comments regarding percentile curves of body mass index

This article published tables of data, but no charts. The data comes from HUGE combined datasets of USA data, a very impressive dataset of over 100,000 measurements of body mass index.

Of interest is the 85th and 95th percentile lines of BMI, which are often used as thresholds to define Overweight and Obesity. On the charts below, I graphed these percentiles (labelled USA) and compared them to the now-standard CDC Charts percentiles.

percentiles of body mass index

Too short, Doc.

I agree. But just now I added that Reference to an article in Pediatrics, and here is a link to the full text. It’s an excellent review of everything about body mass index in children.

References

Krebs NF1, Himes JH, Jacobson D, Nicklas TA, Guilday P, Styne D., Assessment of child and adolescent overweight and obesity. Pediatrics 2007, 120:S193-228.

Why did you post this page in the first place?

Because the original Rosner et al article, didn’t show ANY charts, which was annoying, so I made them myself, and compared them to the CDC charts. Trying to be useful.

Added comments. Look at what the charts are showing. The top row is the “Overweight”, and the bottom row is the “Obese”. In other words, top row is 85th percentile lines, and the bottom row is the 95th percentile lines.

Wow, the CDC set their lines, a lot lower than the USA data. Shouldn’t they be nearly identical?

Lets just say, and I think it’s true, that the CDC said to themselves, we should deliberately use the older data, from before everyone got fatter.

Soooo, the USA data is more recent, and shows that children are fatter than in the past.

That’s exactly what the CDC wants you to think. But are they being manipulative?

Maybe they are doing it for our own good?

Could be.

But it would hurt a kids feelings, to be told that he or she is fatter than 85 percent of kids, but if they look at their friends, it doesn’t seem like they are different from them, so it’s kind of lying.

Exaggerating.

Is there any evidence that exaggerating to make people feel ashamed of their fatness, helps them lose weight?

No evidence it works. Plenty of evidence it doesn’t work.

Even experts are human, and when pressured to “Do Something” about a problem, they thought, lets try this. Lets set standards from before TV and video games, when kids were thin because they physicially played with each other.

But it sounds like a good decision to me.

And I’m not an anarchist. So much in life is compromise.