Triceps skin fold thickness as a measure of body fat in Nigerian adolescents

Abstract

Background: Skin fold thickness (SFT) at selected areas offers a simple method of subcutaneous fat assessment and provides a good estimate of obesity and body fat distribution. The triceps SFT has been shown to be one of the best and most popular sites for SFT measurement in children. Objective: To assess the body fat of school adolescents and to compare the performance of triceps SFT with Bioelectrical impedance method in the detection of overweight (OW) and obesity (OB) among the subjects Methods: The study was cross sectional; involving secondary school students within Sokoto metropolis. Subjects were selected by a multistage random sampling method. Harpenden skin fold caliper (ASSIST Creative Resources Ltd, LL13 9UG, UK) and Tanita Body fat scale (model UM-030, Tanita, UK Ltd; 2004) were used respectively to measure the triceps SFT and body fat content (%) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Results: The mean triceps SFT values were 8.9mm (±4.7) for males and 12.9mm (±4.6) for the females (p<0.001). Mean % BF values were 8.2 ± 4.1% for the males, and 20.0 ± 6.8% for the females (p<0.001). The triceps SFT gave a prevalence of overweight of 2.5%, while that of obesity was 0.8%. With the BIA method, 2.5% of the subjects were classified as overweight and 1.7% as obese. Conclusion: Triceps SFT remain a fair surrogate for the assessment of adiposity, the component of overweight that leads to pathology.

Keywords

• skin fold thickness
• bioelectrical impedance analysis
• body fat
• obesity
• adolescents