The Potential for Using Sonography to Measure Abdominal Adiposity in Children

Abstract

The accumulation of abdominal adiposity has been associated with many risk factors in adults and children. Currently, body mass index (BMI) percentiles, computed tomography (CT), and dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) are widely used to evaluate body fat but are not widely acceptable for measuring visceral and subcutaneous adiposity. The aim of this study was to evaluate abdominal adiposity in children by the use of diagnostic medical sonography (DMS). Fifty-eight third graders were recruited for a 10-week interventional study. This cohort received baseline body composition and anthropometric measures, including height, weight, calculated BMI percentiles, blood pressure, bioelectric impedance, and DMS. The resulting data analysis provided a set of descriptive statistics. DMS may be a reliable, practical, and cost-effective method for measuring visceral and subcutaneous adiposity across varied body compositions of children.