Nutritional Status Assesment in Overweight and Obese Children

Background: Obesity represents the abnormal/excessive accumulation of fat in adipose tissue. Anthropometry takes a person’s body measurements, especially for use on a comparison or classification basis to establish his/her nutritional status. Nutritional condition also includes clinical examination and laboratory findings. Our aim was to assess the nutritional status in a group of obese children versus normal-weight children.
Material and methods: Our prospective study, conducted between October 1, 2010 and April 15, 2011, included a study group with 20 obese children and a control-group with 35 healthy children; we performed antropometric measurements, we calculated some anthropometric indices and performed laboratory tests, abdominal ultrasound and real-tyme elastography; statistical analysis involved Graph PadPrisma and Graph Pad InStat Demo programme; Student’s t test and correlation coefficient Pearson were used.
Results: Children weight and weight-for-age z-score significantly differed between the study-group and controls, at each age group, stature and height-for-age z-score was not significantly different. Medium upper-arm circumference (MUAC) had higher values than Body Mass Index, (BMI), while Tricipital Skin-fold (TSF) recorded the highest values, reflecting the fat deposits of obese children (in controls these indices were between -2SD and +2SD). The laboratory findings were generally within normal limits; total cholesterol values were higher in obese and triglycerides were incresed in a part of children in which they were determined. Liver elasticity was lower in obese than in the control-group.
Conclusion: Overweight alters the nutritional status, disturbs lipid metabolism and decreases the elasticity of the liver, highlighting the risks related to obesity and the importance of prevention and treatment of this disorder.