Improving assessment of obesity in South Asian and black African children

Body fatness, overweight and obesity in UK South Asian and black African children and adolescents:  accurately assessing current patterns and recent time trends and providing improved body mass index (BMI) thresholds for diagnosis of overweight and obesity

Professor Peter Whincup is assessing levels of body fat and obesity in children of different ethnic backgrounds living in the UK. High levels of body fat are of concern in South Asian and black African children, who have a higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes and heart and circulatory disease. We currently use body mass index (BMI) to assess the body fat of children in national surveys and to determine whether a child is overweight or obese. But BMI is not always a good measure of body fatness in certain ethnic groups, underestimating body fatness in South Asian children and overestimating it in black African children. This means that the diagnoses of being overweight or obese in children from these ethnic groups are inaccurate. Professor Whincup wants to obtain an accurate picture of the obesity levels of children of South Asian and black African origin in the UK. In this project, he will combine data from four recent UK studies which accurately assessed body fat measurements in nearly 2000 children living in the UK aged between four and 15 years. He will also refine methods to estimate body fat in different ethnic groups. This research will provide a more accurate picture of obesity and body fat in UK children so we can plan better health campaigns to prevent heart and circulatory disease.