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Research Project: Impact of Maternal Influence and Early Dietary Factors on Child Growth, Development, and Metabolic Health

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Title: Evaluating body composition in infancy and childhood: A comparison between 4C, QMR, DXA, and ADP

Author
item HEARD-LIPSMEYER, MELISSA E. - Arkansas Children'S Nutrition Research Center (ACNC)
item HULL, HOLLY - University Of Kansas
item SIMS, CLARK - Arkansas Children'S Nutrition Research Center (ACNC)
item CLEVES, MARIO - Arkansas Children'S Nutrition Research Center (ACNC)
item ANDRES, ALINE - Arkansas Children'S Nutrition Research Center (ACNC)

Submitted to: Pediatric Obesity
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/2/2020
Publication Date: 1/27/2020
Citation: Heard-Lipsmeyer, M., Hull, H., Sims, C.R., Cleves, M.A., Andres, A. 2020. Evaluating body composition in infancy and childhood: A comparison between 4C, QMR, DXA, and ADP. Pediatric Obesity. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijpo.12617.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ijpo.12617

Interpretive Summary: Obtaining accurate measures of body composition beginning in infancy is required in order to develop preventative strategies against obesity development. Current body composition methods have limitations such as radiation exposure and stillness requirements that limit their use in infants and children. Quantitative Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (QMR) is a technology that can easily assess body composition in the pediatric population without these limitations. The current study assessed the ability of dual-energy absorptiometry (DXA), air displacement plethysmography (ADP) and Quantitative Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (QMR) to assess fat mass of 638 infants and children during 2,984 visits in comparison to a gold standard. Our results show that QMR is able to provide accurate and precise measures of body composition compared to the other methodologies.

Technical Abstract: Accurate and precise methods to measure of body composition in infancy and childhood are needed. This study evaluated differences and precision of three methods when compared with the four-compartment (4C) model for estimating fat mass (FM). FM of children (age 14 days to 6 years of age, N=346) was obtained using quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance (QMR, EchoMRI-AH), air-displacement plethysmography (ADP, PeaPod, less than or equal to 8 kg, BodPod age 6 years or older), and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA, Hologic QDR). The 4C model was computed. Correlation, concordance, and Bland-Altman analyses were performed. In infants, PeaPod had high individual FM accuracy, whereas DXA had high group FM accuracy compared with 4C. In children, DXA had high group and individual FM accuracies compared with 4C. QMR underestimated group FM in infants and children (300 and 510 g, respectively). The instrument FM precision was best for QMR (10 g) followed by BodPod (34 g), PeaPod (38 g), and DXA (45 g). In infants, PeaPod was the best method to estimate individual FM whereas DXA was best to estimate group FM. In children, DXA was best to estimate individual and group FM. QMR had the highest instrument precision.