A comparison of bioelectrical impedance analysis and air displacement plethysmography to assess body composition in children

Fangfang Chen; Lijun Wu; Yiren Chen; Jing Wang; Junting Liu; Guimin Huang; Dongqing Hou; Zijun Liao; Ting Zhang; Xianghui Xie; Gongshu Liu

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1164556

A comparison of bioelectrical impedance analysis and air displacement plethysmography to assess body composition in children

Front Public Health. 2023 Jul 4:11:1164556. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1164556. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology, Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Beijing, China.
² Tianjin Women's and Children's Health Center, Tianjin, China.

Abstract

Background: Accurate assessment of body composition (BC) is important to investigate the development of childhood obesity. A bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) device is portable and inexpensive compared with air displacement plethysmography (ADP) for the assessment of BC and is widely used in children. However, studies of the effectiveness of BIA are few and present different results, especially in pediatric populations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the agreement between BIA and ADP for estimating BC.

Methods: The BC of 981 Chinese children (3-5 years) was measured using the BIA device (SeeHigher BAS-H, China) and ADP (BOD POD).

Results: Our results showed that BIA underestimated fat mass (FM) and overestimated fat-free mass (FFM) in normal weight children (P < 0.05), but the opposite trend was shown in children with obesity (P < 0.05). The agreement between FM and FFM measured by the two methods was strong (CCC > 0.80). The linear regression equation of 5-year-old children was constructed.

Conclusion: The SeeHigher BAS-H multi-frequency BIA device is a valid device to evaluate BC in Chinese preschool children compared with ADP (BOD POD), especially in 5-year-old children or children with obesity. Further research is needed to standardize the assessment of BC in children.

Keywords: air displacement plethysmography; bioelectrical impedance analysis; body composition; children; obesity.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Body Composition
Child
Child, Preschool
Electric Impedance
Humans
Linear Models
Pediatric Obesity*
Plethysmography* / methods

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China, grant number 2022YFF0606202, the public service development and reform pilot project of the Beijing Medical Research Institute, grant number BMR2021-3, and the Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals Incubating Program, grant number Px2022052.