TABLE 4.

Common anthropometric indicators of underweight, stunting, thinness, and wasting, and sources of reference values from 239 articles assessing the double burden of malnutrition in adults and children¹

Anthropometric category	Source	Number of articles
and indicator	(refs 48–50)	n (%)
Underweight		181 (76)
BMI		93
	WHO	65
	IOTF	9
	Other2 or unspecified	19
BMI-for-age z-score		65
	WHO	54
	NCHS/CDC	3
	Other or unspecified	8
BMI-for-age percentile		16
	WHO	6
	NCHS/CDC	4
	Other or unspecified	6
Other or unspecified3		7
Stunting		111 (46)
Length/height-for-age z-score		102
	WHO	85
	NCHS/CDC	4
	Other or unspecified	13
Length/height-for-age percentiles		4
	NCHS/CDC	2
	Other or unspecified	2
Short stature (cm)		4
	Other or unspecified	3
Multiple (z-score and percentile)		1
	WHO and NCHS/CDC	1
Wasting		37 (15)
Weight-for-height z-score		33
	WHO	26
	NCHS/CDC	2
	Other or unspecified	5
Other or unspecified4		4
Thinness		30 (13)
BMI		11
	WHO	2
	IOTF	7
	Other or unspecified	2
BMI-for-age z-score		15
	WHO	12
	IOTF	1
	Other or unspecified	2
BMI-for-age percentile		2
	WHO	1
	Other or unspecified	1
Multiple (z-score and percentile)		2

¹Some articles presented multiple “undernutrition” indicators so percentage total is greater than 100. IOTF, International Obesity Task Force; NCHS/CDC, National Center for Health Statistics/CDC.

²Sources were classified as “other” if they were sourced from uncommon literature sources, such as citing an individual article for country-specific cutoff values for underweight.

³Underweight indicators classified as “other” included measurements of low birthweight or combinations of multiple indicators.

⁴Wasting indicators classified as “other” included measurements of body fat or muscle mass, or combinations of multiple indicators.