The body mass index calculations that physicians have been relying on for decades may not be accurate for assessing body fat in adolescents between the ages of 8 and 17.

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics shows that tri–ponderal mass index estimates body fat more accurately than the traditional BMI in adolescents.

These new findings are timely as diagnosing, treating and tracking the prevalence of children and adolescents with obesity is a high public health priority. Moreover, many school districts are sending home report cards labeling adolescents as overweight — a practice that has been controversial because children and adolescents tend to be more vulnerable to weight bias and fat shaming than adults. “Treating obesity in adolescents requires an accurate diagnosis first,” said lead scientist Courtney Peterson, PhD, an assistant professor in the School of Health Professions at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “We found that TMI is both more accurate and easier to use than BMI percentiles. These new findings have the power to potentially change the way we diagnose obesity in children and adolescents ages 8 to 17.”

To test BMI accuracy in adolescents, researchers compared body composition data from 2,285 Caucasian individuals ages 8 to 29 who participated in the 1999–2004 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Their findings challenge the accuracy of BMI (weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) in adolescents and show that TMI (weight divided by height cubed) estimates body fat more accurately than BMI in those 8 to 17 years old.

“BMI is a pretty good tool for determining whether adults are overweight or obese,” Peterson said. “But we’ve always kind of known that it doesn’t work as well in children.”

Using three different calculations – stability with age, accuracy in estimating percent body fat and accuracy in classifying adolescents as overweight versus normal weight – researchers compared BMI to several different obesity indices. They found that TMI is the best overall body fat index to use in Caucasian adolescents between the ages of 8 and 17.

The researchers found that TMI better estimates body fat percentage, especially in male adolescents for whom the investigators found BMI to be particularly inaccurate. Their analysis also showed TMI to be a better index for diagnosing overweight adolescents than the current BMI percentiles. Using BMI percentiles, researchers noted that adolescents are incorrectly diagnosed as overweight 19.4 percent of the time, versus an only 8.4 percent incorrect overweight diagnosis rate for TMI. The data showed this is especially true for lean adolescents, a significant fraction of whom are incorrectly being diagnosed as overweight.

The researchers also used mathematical strategies to show how the relationship between body weight and height is much more complex in children and adolescents than it is in adults, particularly when adolescents are rapidly growing. The authors explained that for decades this complexity made it challenging to figure out the optimal body fat index for adolescents.

“We look forward to collaborating with other existing national and global health organizations to analyze additional data for diagnosing weight status among children and adolescents,” Peterson said. “Ultimately, we hope this research lays the foundation for improving the health of adolescents, and we think that down the road TMI will likely replace BMI for children and adolescents.”