Association of bone age with overweight and obesity in children in the age group of 8 to 11 years

Abstract

Overweight is defined as having excess body weight for a particular height from fat, muscle, bone, water, or a combination of these factors. Obesity is defined as having excess body fat. 1,2 The prevalence of obesity is rapidly progressing in children. It is associated with serious health hazards in adolescence and especially in adulthood. The risk of overweight children becoming obese is alarming. The skeletal maturation process involves transformation of the cartilaginous epiphyseal growth plate into bone, which proceeds as a child grows and matures. Once the epiphyseal plate ossifies an individual reaches final adult height. Influence of hormones and other factors play an important role in progression of skeletal maturation. Obese children during prepubertal years have higher height velocity and accelerated bone age compared to lean subjects. However, this prepubertal advantage in growth tends to gradually decrease during puberty, obese children show a reduced growth spurt compared with lean subjects thereby decreasing the final height of obese children. The fact that obese children have advanced bone age tells us that BMI is directly proportional to accelerated bone age. ABSTRACT