Body Mass Index (BMI) Monitoring in Children and Adolescents – Monitor, Monitor and Monitor!
Time to read: 2 minutes
Imagine you have been seeing a young patient in your child and adolescent clinic, where psychotherapy and psycho-education alone has not been effective. You decide that now is the right time to begin a trial of medication (with potential growth or metabolic side effects). As a physician, it is your duty to do the basic monitoring of heart rate, blood pressure, height, and weight routinely.
BMI AND CLINICAL GROWTH CHARTS
Especially in children, it is not only important to monitor Body Mass Index (BMI), but also Clinical Growth Charts (for example monitoring growth when prescribing stimulant medications and metabolic syndrome when prescribing antipsychotics).
You can find the latest up to date Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Body Mass Index (BMI) and Growth Charts here.
Here is a link that takes gender into account.
Are the growth charts at your service up to date?
IS EXPLAINING THE RESULTS IN BLACK AND WHITE EFFECTIVE?
You might notice that, although the updated growth charts listed above are in colour, they are not colour coded. These commonly found charts are manually recorded by hand and filed in the patient’s medical records.
Even if you decide to show your patient where you have plotted their results, many patients would not be familiar with these charts, let alone be able to interpret and make good life decisions based on your findings.
USING THE CDC GROWTH CHART CALCULATOR
Did you know that the CDC website also offers a growth chart calculator for children and teenagers? You can find the BMI/growth chart calculator here.
I often use this as a tool in my practice. Not only is it an easy way to calculate and document, but also a better way to communicate the results to my patients and their families.
Psycho-education is only useful if it has a practical impact for our patients. For example, if I tell my patient that their BMI is in the 95th percentile for their age, he might not understand this information in relation to a percentile. But if I tell him his BMI is almost in the “RED ZONE” they might interpret these results differently and make better life choices in regards to their diet, physical exercise, and health.
STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO USING THE COLOUR CODED GROWTH CHART
Step 1: Enter Patient information on the CDC website here
Step 2: Results interpretation
Step 3: Educate your patient and their family in colour
As seen above, the chart quickly allows the patient and the family to see if they are in the Red, Yellow or Green Zone.
I’d like to know your experience the next time you use one.
QUIZ