[Applicability of anthropometric indices that assess nutritional status in young people of short and normal stature living at high altitude in Peru].

Abstract

Introduction: anthropometric indices may show serious limitations in populations living at high altitudes.

Objective: to verify the applicability of anthropometric indices ‒body mass index (BMI), tri-weight index (TWI), waist-height index (WHI), and body surface area (BSA)‒ that assess nutritional status in a population of young university students categorized as short and normal height.

Methodology: a cross-sectional (correlational) study was conducted on 310 young university students living in a high-altitude region of Perú. The age range was 17 to 22 years. Data were collected (age, weight, height, and waist circumference WC). BMI, TWI, WHI, and BSA were calculated. Short stature (< p10) and normal stature (≥ p10) were defined according to the reference of the United States National Center for Health Statistics.

Results: there were no differences in BMI, TWI, and WHI between young people categorized as short and normal. However, there were differences in BSA between young people with short and normal stature. The explanatory power (R2) for BSA, both for short stature (males 19 % and females 16 %) and normal stature (males 29 % and females 49 %), was higher than for the other anthropometric indices. In addition, it showed a better fit and greater parsimony (AIC and BIC) than the other anthropometric indicators.

Conclusion: the BSA was the only indicator that allowed differentiation between short stature and normal stature categories, while BMI and ICE showed no differences between sexes, and the ITP only showed differences in men. These findings suggest that the BSA could provide complementary information for characterizing height variations in young people living at high altitude.