Body composition-derived BMI cut-offs for overweight and obesity in ethnic Indian and Creole urban children of Mauritius.

It is increasingly recognised that the use of BMI cut-off points for diagnosing obesity (OB) and proxy measures for body fatness in a given population needs to take into account the potential impact of ethnicity on the BMI-fat % relationship in order to avoid adiposity status misclassification. This relationship was studied here in 377 Mauritian schoolchildren (200 boys and 177 girls, aged 7-13 years) belonging to the two main ethnic groups: Indian (South Asian descent) and Creole (African/Malagasy descent), with body composition assessed using an isotopic 2H dilution technique as reference. The results indicate that for the same BMI, Indians have more body fat (and less lean mass) than Creoles among both boys and girls: linear regression analysis revealed significantly higher body fat % by 4-5 units (P < 0·001) in Indians than in Creoles across a wide range of BMI (11·6-34·2 kg/m2) and body fat % (5-52 %). By applying Deurenberg's Caucasian-based equation to predict body fat % from WHO-defined BMI thresholds for overweight (OW) and OB, and by recalculating the equivalent BMI values using a Mauritian-specific equation, it is shown that the WHO BMI cut-offs for OB and OW would need to be lowered by 4·6-5·9 units in Indian and 2·0-3·7 units in Creole children in the 7-13-year-old age group. These results have major implications for ethnic-based population research towards improving the early diagnosis of excess adiposity in this multi-ethnic population known to be at high risk for later development of type 2 diabetes and CVD.

Total energy expenditure assessed by doubly labeled water technique and estimates of physical activity in Mauritian children: analysis by gender and ethnicity.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: In the tropical island of Mauritius, the rise in obesity has accelerated in the past decades, and could be contributed by low physical activity and increased sedentary behavior. The study objectives were to generate the first dataset of total energy expenditure (TEE), to estimate physical activity in Mauritian children, and to explore differences due to gender and ethnicity. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The doubly labeled water (DLW) technique was used to evaluate TEE over 14 days in 56 Mauritian school children (aged 7-11 years) belonging to the two main ethnic groups: Indian (South Asian descent) and Creole (African/Malagasy descent). Physical activity level (PAL) was calculated as the ratio of TEE and resting energy expenditure (using Schofield equations), and daily step counts were measured by accelerometry. Anthropometry and body composition were also assessed. RESULTS: TEE measured by DLW was lower in Mauritian children (by ~155 kcal/d) than that predicted using FAO/WHO/UNU equations for children of the same sex, age, and body size. Furthermore, TEE, as well as PAL and step counts, also differed according to gender (lower in girls than in boys) and to ethnicity (lower in Indians than in Creoles) even after adjusting for differences in body weight and body composition. CONCLUSION: These results in Mauritian children provide the first dataset of objectively measured TEE, from which physical activity is estimated as PAL, and complemented by step counts measurements. They suggest potential gender and ethnic differences in TEE and physical activity that need consideration in developing strategies to counter sedentary behavior and obesity.

Beauty and the Body of the Beholder: Raters' BMI Has Only Limited Association with Ratings of Attractiveness of the Opposite Sex.

OBJECTIVE: Assortative mating for adiposity increases the genetic burden on offspring, but its causes remain unclear. One hypothesis is that people who have high adiposity find other people with obesity more physically attractive than lean people. METHODS: The attractiveness of sets of images of males and females who varied in adiposity were rated by opposite sex subjects (559 males and 340 females) across 12 countries. RESULTS: There was tremendous individual variability in attractiveness ratings. For female attractiveness, most males favored the leanest subjects, but others favored intermediate fatness, some were indifferent to body composition, and others rated the subjects with obesity as most attractive. For male images rated by females, the patterns were more complex. Most females favored subjects with low levels of adiposity (but not the lowest level), whereas others were indifferent to body fatness or rated the images depicting individuals with obesity as the most attractive. These patterns were unrelated to rater BMI. Among Caucasian males who rated the images of the thinnest females as being more attractive, the magnitude of the effect depended on rater BMI, indicating limited "mutual attraction." CONCLUSIONS: Individual variations in ratings of physical attractiveness were broadly unrelated to rater BMI and suggest that mutual attraction is an unlikely explanation for assortative mating for obesity.

The relationship of female physical attractiveness to body fatness.

Aspects of the female body may be attractive because they signal evolutionary fitness. Greater body fatness might reflect greater potential to survive famines, but individuals carrying larger fat stores may have poor health and lower fertility in non-famine conditions. A mathematical statistical model using epidemiological data linking fatness to fitness traits, predicted a peaked relationship between fatness and attractiveness (maximum at body mass index (BMI) = 22.8 to 24.8 depending on ethnicity and assumptions). Participants from three Caucasian populations (Austria, Lithuania and the UK), three Asian populations (China, Iran and Mauritius) and four African populations (Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal) rated attractiveness of a series of female images varying in fatness (BMI) and waist to hip ratio (WHR). There was an inverse linear relationship between physical attractiveness and body fatness or BMI in all populations. Lower body fat was more attractive, down to at least BMI = 19. There was no peak in the relationship over the range we studied in any population. WHR was a significant independent but less important factor, which was more important (greater r (2)) in African populations. Predictions based on the fitness model were not supported. Raters appeared to use body fat percentage (BF%) and BMI as markers of age. The covariance of BF% and BMI with age indicates that the role of body fatness alone, as a marker of attractiveness, has been overestimated.