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Uses of BMI in Healthcare
Body Mass Index (BMI) is in the present times is one of the most effective anthropometric estimates of fatness for all public health purposes. BMI indicates the body size of an individual by comparing the person’s weight with their height (Hall & Cole, 2016). The results of a BMI provide a clear indication of whether a subject will have the ideal weight for their height. The BMI helps indicate if a person is underweight, has excess weight, is obese, or has healthy weight. If an individual’s BMI range is above the healthy range, such people will experience substantial health risks. For instance, having excess weight will increase the dangers of developing chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular problems and high blood pressure (Hall & Cole, 2016). Among adults, BMI is not linked with their age or their sex. However, for teens and children age and sex. Will be considered in calculating BMI. This is because, among children, girls and boys grow at different rates and will have varying levels of body fat in varying ages. For these reasons, when taking BMI measurements for children and teens, sex and age have to be taken into consideration. In measuring the BMI for children and teens, health practitioners have to locate the BMI numbers and the child’s specific age on a sex-specific BMI –for- age- chart (CDC, 2018). Such measurements provide a clear picture of whether a child has a healthy weight, is underweight or is overweight or obese. Children will be considered obese if they have a BMI for –age- equal to or greater than 95th percentile and overweight when they post a BMI for age percentile of 84th to 94th percentile (CDC, 2018).
BMI’s Validity and Reliability
The validity and reliability of BMI as a tool for determining the risk of obesity is questionable on different levels in that the measurement of body fat should be reliable and correlate with the body fat an individual may have regardless of their age, sex or ethnicity. On this count, BMI cannot be categorized as a reliable and valid measure of body fat in that the relationship between BMI and the fat percentage will be affected by different factors such as age, physical activity level, ethnicity and gender (Freedman & Sherry, 2015). Considering individual factors, other measures of adiposity may be more reliable and useful than BMI. For example, aging will be associated with many changes in the composition of the body. As a person grows older, there will be a massive reduction in muscle mass and fat-free mass and subsequent increase visceral fat even though their body weight will remain general unchanged (Zhang, Fos, Johnson, Kamali, Cox, Zuniga, & Kittle, 2018). Health risks will be more associated with visceral fat mass. Therefore as BMI does not correlate accurately with visceral fat mass, it may therefore not be considered a reliable indicator of whether a given individual is healthy or not especially children. Among children, there are considerable disparities in body mass among different sexes such as in boys and girls. Such disparities affect the reliability and validity of BMI as tools for measuring adiposity in such a population. Apart from age and gender, there are substantial ethnicity differences in body composition. Among races such as African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics, different BMI values will predispose the population to different health risks. Using BMI to determine the risk of individuals to specific issues may, therefore, not be sufficient (Freedman & Sherry, 2015).
Health Issues/Risks Relevant To the 5- Year Old Overweight African American Boy
As the 5-year-old African American boy is already overweight and spends their time after schools with their grandmother, which means they are not that much physically active, they risk developing different health complications and risks. This includes accumulating high cholesterol rates and high blood pressures which are significant risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and developing breathing problems such as sleep apnea and asthma (Gibbs & Chapman-Novakofski, 2012). The overweight African American boy is also at a high risk of developing impaired glucose resistance which may lead to type 2 diabetes, fatty liver diseases, musculoskeletal discomfort and joint problems, gastro-esophageal reflux and gallstones, among many health risks (Gibbs & Chapman-Novakofski, 2012).
Additional Information on the 5- Year Old Overweight African American Boy
To assess the weight-related health of the African American boy, one of the primary additional information I would need is information related to the nutrition the boy receives. This wo
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