Comparison of body mass index and fat mass index to classify body composition in adolescents-The EVA4YOU study

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to develop age- and sex-specific reference percentiles for fat mass index (FMI) and fat-free mass index (FFMI) in adolescents aged 14 to 19 years and to determine differences in overweight/obesity classification by FMI and body mass index (BMI). The EVA4YOU study is a single-center cross-sectional study conducted in western Austria. Cardiovascular risks including anthropometric measurements and bioelectrical impedance analysis were assessed in adolescents (mean age 17 years). FMI and FFMI were calculated as the ratio of fat mass (FM) and fat-free mass (FFM) to the square of height and compared to study population-specific BMI percentiles. One thousand four hundred twenty-two adolescents were included in the analysis. Girls had a significantly higher mean FM and FMI and a significantly lower mean FFM, FFMI (p < 0.001, each), and mean BMI (p = 0.020) than boys. Body composition classification by FMI and BMI percentiles shows a concordance for the < 75th and > 97th percentile, but a significant difference in percentile rank classifications between these two cut-off values (all p < 0.05). Based on FMI, 15.5% (221/1422) of the whole population and 29.4% (92/313) of those between the 75th and 97th percentiles are classified one category higher or lower than those assigned by BMI.

Conclusion: Classification of normal or pathologic body composition based on BMI and FMI shows good accordance in the clearly normal or pathologic range. In an intermediate range, FMI reclassifies categories based on BMI in more than a quarter of adolescents. Cut-off values to differentiate normal from pathologic FMI values on a biological basis are needed.

Trial registration: The study is registered at www.

Clinicaltrials: gov (Identifier: NCT04598685; Date of registration: October 22, 2020).

What is known: • Chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally, with major risk factors including unhealthy diets, harmful behaviors, and obesity. Obesity in children and adolescents is a key risk factor for later NCDs, which is commonly measured by Body Mass Index (BMI). • BMI can be misleading as it doesn't distinguish between fat mass (FM) and fat-free mass (FFM), leading to potential misclassification of obesity in children. Previous studies have already suggested the use of the Fat Mass Index (FMI) and Fat-Free Mass Index (FFMI) as a more accurate measures of body composition.

What is new: • This study adds the first age- and sex-specific reference values for FMI and FFMI in Austrian adolescents using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) as a safe and secure measurement method of a large representative cohort. • We found percentile misclassification between BMI and FMI when categorizing for obesity, especially in intermediate categories of body composition. Furthermore, when comparing the new reference values for FMI and FFMI to existing ones from the US, UK, and Germany we could show a good alignment within the European cohorts and major differences with American values, indicating and confirming the difference of FMI and FFMI for different populations of different ethnical background, living on different continents.

Keywords: Adolescents; Bioelectrical impedance analysis; Body mass index; Fat mass index; Fat-free mass index; Overweight.

Fig. 1

Reference curves for FMI and FFMI in boys and girls aged 14 to 19 years (3rd, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th, and 97th percentile is shown)

Fig. 2

Change in categorization of body composition when FMI percentiles are used instead of BMI percentiles. The columns denote the population in different BMI categories (< 75, 75– < 85, 85– < 95, 95– < 97, ≥ 97th percentile). The color coding shows the proportion of the population that stays in the same category based on FMI (in green) or that changes by one (in orange) or two (in red) categories

Fig. 3

Graphic representation illustrating the differences in classification between body composition indices and BMI (created with https://www.biorender.com/)