Establishing a Standard Definition for East Asian Adolescent's Obesity

Objcetive: The purpose of this study was to establish body mass index percentiles and cutoffs for overweight and obesity in East Asian Adolescent. Methods: Based on one's age and gender, subjects were selected and measured their weight and height in order to calculate BMI. For BMI cut off points, data were analyzed and percentile curves were established by the modified LMS method. Results were followed by comparing BMI cut off points and percentiles with one's nationality, age and gender. Results: The prevalence of male's overweight and obesity among East Asian adolescent were as follows: Taiwan (15.4%, 9.0%), Korean (14.5%, 8.5%), Chinese (13.3%, 6.6%), and Japanese (6.0%, 2.1%). And for female, Korean (13.1%, 3.7%), Taiwan (12.6%, 5.1%), Chinese (8.3%, 2.3%) and Japanese (7.9%, 3.1%) were in the order. Conclusion: Corresponded to the whole subjects, 11.0% of men were overweight, 4.7 were obesity and that appeared in women with 9.0% in overweight, 3.5% were obese.