The first issue relates to the need for comparing the Chennai data with an external standard. They propose that, had such a comparison been done, the prevalence of obesity would have been more than what is reported. The yardstick to compare our data have been Aggarwal’s and Cole’s. For the sake of brevity, discussion on BMI was limited to the 85th and 95th percentiles only.

In reply to their second query regarding BMI cut off, we wish to state that same cut off cannot be used as there has been secular changes in the last one and half decades, reflecting in the adolescents’ nutritional status and velocity of progress of puberty. BMI in some age groups are inconsistent because the sample size is small as a result of having been split at 6 monthly intervals. This was done to compare our data with Cole’s data.

Lastly, data of both the groups had the percentiles and mean values calculated. Only the percentiles were submitted as, Cole’s and Agarwal’s data on BMI reported in percentiles, were used for comparison. The mean values of the Chennai BMI study are similar to the 50th percentiles in both the groups at all age intervals.

Vedwati Subramanyam,
Shaffi Ahmed,
Kanchi Kamakoti Childs Trust Hospital,
12-A, Nageswara Road,
Nungambakkam, Chennai 600 034,
India.
E-mail: [email protected]