Week 3 Discussion Sample Paper NURS 6512 Week 3 Assignment – Assessment Tools and Diagnostic Tests in Adults and Children

BMI Assessment Tool

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Uses of BMI in Healthcare

Body Mass Index (BMI) is in the present times is one of the most effective anthropometric estimates of fatness for all public health purposes. BMI indicates the body size of an individual by comparing the person’s weight with their height (Hall & Cole, 2016). The results of a BMI provide a clear indication of whether a subject will have the ideal weight for their height. The BMI helps indicate if a person is underweight, has excess weight, is obese, or has healthy weight. If an individual’s BMI range is above the healthy range, such people will experience substantial health risks.  For instance, having excess weight will increase the dangers of developing chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular problems and high blood pressure (Hall & Cole, 2016).  Among adults, BMI is not linked with their age or their sex. However, for teens and children age and sex. Will be considered in calculating BMI. This is because, among children, girls and boys grow at different rates and will have varying levels of body fat in varying ages. For these reasons, when taking BMI measurements for children and teens, sex and age have to be taken into consideration. In measuring the BMI for children and teens, health practitioners have to locate the BMI numbers and the child’s specific age on a sex-specific BMI –for- age- chart (CDC, 2018). Such measurements provide a clear picture of whether a child has a healthy weight, is underweight or is overweight or obese. Children will be considered obese if they have a BMI for –age- equal to or greater than 95th percentile and overweight when they post a BMI for age percentile of 84th to 94th percentile (CDC, 2018).

BMI’s Validity and Reliability

The validity and reliability of BMI as a tool for determining the risk of obesity is questionable on different levels in that the measurement of body fat should be reliable and correlate with the body fat an individual may have regardless of their age, sex or ethnicity. On t