Anthropometric indicators and health status-A relationship from infancy to adulthood

The Word Health Organization considers anthropometry as a valuable tool to identify both health and nutritional status in the population. Part of this recognition comes from being a set of inexpensive and non-invasive techniques, with a portability that enriches its functionality. The use of anthropometry in health sciences is well established and takes into consideration a broad range of indexes (e.g., weight-for-height, height-for-age, weight-for-age, mid-upper-arm circumference and body mass index), especially among paediatric population. To state how well/healthy a subject is growing and developing, the usage of anthropometric ratios/indexes since early ages (or even before birth), comparing against standard or reference data, allows the follow-up of the new born/youth status. Although the use of standard values has been criticized, it is still valid and recommended for new born/children. For adults, however, it is not applicable and the cut-points values are used instead. Fundamentally, these evaluations provide information about the consequences of a subject exposure to food deprivation and/or disease/illness, which can lead to undernutrition conditions or, at the other end, the consequences of overeating, leading to excessive fat deposition/weight. Nevertheless, anthropometry can be implemented in many evaluations and not only with the purpose of identifying nutritional status. For instance, it is possible to identify risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases through simple measurements as weight, height, waist and hip circumferences, and their possible ratios. Therefore, anthropometry represents one more non-invasive tool at the disposal of health professionals to detect subjects at risk, irrespective of their age and sex. The present work highlights the relevance of the cut-points derived from those measurements/ratios, which could help the early identification of subjects at risk and consequent preventive actions upon the identified risk factors.