Abstract des Autors

There is growing concern regarding childhood obesity and its impact on children's health, and many states and school districts have mandated that health assessments be conducted as part of physical education. Tools such as the FITNESSGRAM® can help teachers inform students and parents if students are above a healthy weight range. The FITNESSGRAM body composition assessment helps teachers categorize students as being in the Healthy Fitness Zone® or the Needs Improvement Zone based on skinfold thickness measurements or body mass index (BMI; kg/m2) data based on height and weight. Although there is evidence that skinfolds may be a more accurate screening tool, BMI is commonly used because it is more feasible to collect students' height and weight in school settings with large class sizes. When BMI is used as a screening tool to identify overweight children, there is a lack of clarity concerning what standards should be used and its accuracy as a measure of adiposity is thought to vary greatly and be affected by the child's gender, age, race/ethnicity, and the degree of body fatness. To date, the consistency of the FITNESSGRAM risk classification determined from BMI as compared to skinfold thickness measurements has not been examined. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine if the FITNESSGRAM body composition cut-points using BMI and skinfold thickness resulted in the same classification of African American and Caucasian youth as being overly fat. The authors hypothesized that, when using the BMI measures, more African American compared to Caucasian youth would be in the unhealthy weight zone. Aus dem Text (geändert)