OBJECTIVE: To compare the performance of the references (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I, National Center for Health Statistics/2000, International Obesity Task Force and Pesquisa Nacional sobre Saúde e Nutrição) to assess the nutritional status of children and adolescents with the new reference of body mass index values proposed by the World Health Organization in 2007. METHODS: Cross-sectional study that enrolled a non-probabilistic sample of 5,122 children and adolescents of low socioeconomic status. In the matrix study, sample size was calculated in order to identify the association between blood pressure changes and stunting in different nutritional status. This interim report relates to the comparison among different references for assessment of nutritional status. Cochran's Q, McNemar, chisquare and Kappa statistics were used to compare the proportion of underweight and overweight by different references and the agreement among them. RESULTS: The five references used in this study showed differences between them. Both for boys as for girls, the estimated prevalence of underweight by the Brazilian reference is much smaller than with the other references. For overweight girls, a higher prevalence was detected by the Pesquisa Nacional sobre Saúde e Nutrição reference, followed by the World Health Organization/2007. There was an excellent agreement (k>0.75) between the references regarding overweight, but the agreement among them regarding underweight was weak (k<0.40). CONCLUSIONS: The new reference of World Health Organization/2007 is appropriated for classifying nutritional disorders in Brazilian teenagers.
reference standards; adolescent; body mass index; overweight; malnutrition
