Body Fat Percentage of Children Varies According to Their Diet Composition
Section snippets
Subjects
A sample of 262 children, 162 boys and 100 girls aged 9.8±0.5 years, were recruited using newspaper advertisements and school flyers. Subjects qualified by being at least 9 and less than 11 years old. Subjects were paid $10 to participate in the study. Written informed consent was obtained from each subject and a legal guardian. The study was conducted with the approval of the Brigham Young University Institutional Review Board.
Measures
Two separate written questionnaires were used. The first was
Results
Mean (±standard deviation) weights and heights were 35.9±8.4 kg and 142.5±17.7 cm, respectively, for the boys and 35.4±8.3 kg and 141.4±7.7 cm, respectively, for the girls. Mean body fat percentage was 19.2±8.7 for the boys and 23.7±6.1 for the girls. The boys consumed 2,208.3±615.7 kcal per day; 50.1±5.4% from carbohydrate, 15.9±2.3% from protein, and 34.5±5.3% from fat. The girls consumed 1,778±593.1 kcal per day; 49.3±5.7% from carbohydrate, 15.7±2.1% from protein, and 35.9±5.4% from fat. Mean
Discussion
The relationship between dietary fat and body fat has been studied many times in adults (6), (7), (8), (9), (10), (20), (21), (22), (38); however, only a few studies have examined this relationship in children (25), (26), (27). In investigations of both adults and children, the percent of energy derived from fat has always been greater in obese than in lean subjects. The findings of this study were no exception. Again, the fattest subjects derived significantly more energy from fat than the
Applications
Given the strong evidence from animal research and the consistency of findings from human short-term experimental and cross-sectional investigations, including this study, the admonition to restrict dietary fat intake and promote complex carbohydrate consumption to prevent the accumulation of excess body fat seems warranted.■
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