Abstract

HERAZO, Edwin  and  VILLAMIL-VARGAZ, Miryam. Agreement between adolescents' self-perceived weight and body mass index (BMI). Rev. salud pública [online]. 2012, vol.14, n.6, pp.1043-1048. ISSN 0124-0064.

Objective Determining agreement between adolescent students' self-perceived weight and body mass index (BMI) in Bogotá, Colombia. Method This was exploratory research in which a group of 321 12-18 year-old (mean=14.4; SD=1.6) adolescent students participated: 206 girls and 115 boys. Agreement between self-perceived weight (0=low, 1=adequate and 2=high) and BMI was estimated using Spearman's correlation (r_s); the authors' expected r_s was higher than 0.6. Results It was found that self-perceived weight was low in 48 students (15.0 %), adequate in 228 (71.0 %) and high in 45 of them (14.0 %). BMI ranged from 14.5 to 29.8 (mean=20.5; SD=3.0). Overall r_s was 0.4 amongst boys and girls, 0.5 in girls and 0.3 in boys. Conclusions Agreement was low between the adolescents' self-perceived weight and their actual BMI; these measurements were not interchangeable. Further research is needed to corroborate the findings.

Keywords : Body weight; body image; body mass index; adolescent.

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