Determining the severity of obesity is important for the assessment of future health risks. It also allows us to closely monitor the development of obesity and evaluate treatment outcomes.

Ordinary growth charts tell us exactly if a child is in the obesity range, but badly answers the question of how serious the obesity is. There are several ways of expressing the severity (eg using standard deviations). We have used in our calculator a relatively new, progressive way of expressing obesity by calculating how the age and gender obesity limits are exceeded. This means the percentage exceeding the 95th percentile in the case of CDC data. Briefly - % P95.

This method has already been adopted by major organizations such as the CDC and the American Heart Association (AHA).

This evaluation method makes it possible to identify 3 subgroups of obesity:

• 100  -  119 %P95 class I – moderate obesity
• 120 - 139 %P95 class II – severe obesity
• 140 %P95 and more class III – morbid (extreme) obesity