Resumen

BAUCE, Gerardo. Comparison between references of the BMI, for obesity and overweight prevalence, in children of three cities of Venezuela. INHRR [online]. 2011, vol.42, n.1, pp.07-15. ISSN 0798-0477.

Considering the Group between 5 and 19 years old, the most vulnerable, and that the prevalence of overweight and childhood obesity has increased in recent years, to the point that the WHO declared “New Century Epidemic”; and considering that in Venezuela has been published for the year 2004 the percentage of overweight it’s ranked in 13.7%. Also it is the fact that obesity and overweight, according to a WHO report (2006), who have serious health consequences, and the risk increases as does it the BMI, what constitutes a risk factor for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and other. The stydy aims to obtain the BMI to a group of children, using several methods and compare the results on the prevalence of overweight and obesity. It were considerer 304 children and adolescents from Caracas, Mérida and Valencia, 6 - 18 years, and obtained the BMI, using the methods of the Cen - ter for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2000), percentile ≥ 85 and < 95, risk of overweight, percentile ≥ 95, obe sity; b) values proposed by Cole et al, BMI for age and gender, percentile > 85 overweight and > 95 obesity; and c) the criteria suggested by WHO, > +1DE, overweight and ≥ 2ED obesity. The results reveal that the three methods give rise to different results; however agree with results obtained in other studies.

Palabras clave : Overweight; obesity; BMI (body mass index); children; adolescents.