Abstract

FREIRE, Fábia; COSTA, Leonardo Trevisan  and  GORLA, José Irineu. Indicators of obesity in young people with Down Syndrome. Motri. [online]. 2014, vol.10, n.2, pp.02-10. ISSN 1646-107X.  https://doi.org/10.6063/motricidade.10(2).1196.

The aim of this study was to compare growth and obesity parameters by gender, as well as check the correlation on the variables of two obesity parameters, body mass index (BMI) and % body fat in children and adolescents with Down syndrome. The sample was composed by 104 children and adolescents, 58 boys and 46 girls ranging between 07 and 17 years-old, all students enrolled in specialized institutions of the State of São Paulo. BMI and % body fat were calculated after collecting a few anthropometric measures, such as body mass, height and skinfolds (subscapular and triceps). The results were analyzed by rank correlation coefficient Spearman. Correlations between the raw scores of BMI and % body fat was 0.87, i.e., a strong effect. Thus, results demonstrated that BMI is strongly associated to % body fat, being a good procedure to assess overweight and obesity in people with Down syndrome.

Keywords : obesity; BMI; skinfold; Down syndrome.

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