Fig. 1
Example of assessing obesity status for a 10 years 2 month old boy, (Height:146 cm; Weight: 38 kg) with or without BMI calculation. a) Assessing obesity using WHO 2007 reference tables with BMI calculation. b) Assessing obesity using the simplified screening tool without BMI calculation. a) In the age row of 122 months, the BMI value for being overweight should be more than +1SD Z-score (19.16). This boy’s computed BMI (38 kg/1.4622 m = 17.8) is less than his screening unit grid of 19.161 and hence, he is not overweight. b) The age of this boy is between 10 and 10.5 years rows. In the row 10 years, the height is between 144.4 cm and 148.3 cm and in the row 10.5 years, his height is between 144.8 cm and 147.2 cm. The screening weight grids for these heights are, respectively, 38.5, 40.6, 39.4, 40.8 kg. The boy’s weight (38 kg) is below his screening unit grids and hence, he is not overweight. If his weight was 38.7 kg, he would be placed within the screening unit grids and hence, he would have been considered overweight. In contrary, as per the 2007 WHO table, his computed BMI (37.8 kg/1.4622 m = 18.15) is still below his screening unit grid of 19.161 and hence, he would have been considered not overweight