BMI metrics and their association with adiposity, cardiometabolic risk factors, and biomarkers in children and adolescents

Background There are limited data comparing the relative associations of various BMI metrics with adiposity and cardiometabolic risk factors in youth. Objective Examine correlations of 7 different BMI metrics with adiposity, cardiometabolic risk factors, and biomarkers (i.e. blood pressure, waist circumference, cholesterol, leptin, insulin, high molecular weight adiponectin, high-sensitivity c-reactive protein (hsCRP)). Methods This was a cross-sectional analysis of youth in all BMI categories. BMI metrics: BMI z -score (BMIz), extended BMIz (ext.BMIz), BMI percentile (BMIp), percent of the BMI 95th percentile (%BMI p95 ), percent of the BMI median (%BMI p50 ), triponderal mass index (TMI), and BMI (BMI). Correlations between these BMI metrics and adiposity, visceral adiposity, cardiometabolic risk factors and biomarkers were summarized using Pearson’s correlations. Results Data from 371 children and adolescents ages 8–21 years old were included in our analysis: 52% were female; 20.2% with Class I obesity, 20.5% with Class II, and 14.3% with Class III obesity. BMIp consistently demonstrated lower correlations with adiposity, risk factors, and biomarkers ( r = 0.190–0.768) than other BMI metrics. The %BMI p95 and %BMI p50 were marginally more strongly correlated with measures of adiposity as compared to other BMI metrics. The ext.BMIz did not meaningfully outperform BMIz. Conclusion Out of all the BMI metrics evaluated, %BMI p95 and %BMI p50 were the most strongly correlated with measures of adiposity. %BMI p95 has the benefit of being used currently to define obesity and severe obesity in both clinical and research settings. BMIp consistently had the lowest correlations. Future research should evaluate the longitudinal stability of various BMI metrics and their relative associations with medium to long-term changes in adiposity and cardiometabolic outcomes in the context of intervention trials.