Predicting risk factors of cardiovascular disease according to anthropometric measures in children and adolescents

Background: Regarding the higher risk of abdominal obesity versus generalized obesity, nowadays the combined measurement of body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) is used for prediction of obesity health hazards among adults however such information is limited among children and adolescents. Objective: In this study, the individualized and combined influence of BMI and WC on risk factors of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in overweight children and adolescents was assessed. Methods: This study included 3432 overweight/obese children and adolescents referred to the Pediatric Preventive Cardiology Department (Isfahan Cardiovascular Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences) in whom six CVD risk factors were measured and registered. At the first step of analysis, BMI and WC were considered as continuous variables in predicting CVD risk factors. At the second step, the participants were initially categorized into overweight and obese, and later, the risk factors in each group were compared among those with WC lower and or higher than 75th percentile. Findings: When the BMI and WC in a regression model for predicting CVD risk factors were used, the increase in variance was found to have insignificant difference compared to those obtained for BMI and WC, individually. When the aforementioned categories were applied, WC was shown to be more informative about risk factors than that of BMI alone. Conclusion: The findings of present study emphasize on the role of abdominal obesity in increasing the risk of chronic diseases, notably CVD in children and adolescents hence, similar to adults, measurement of WC as well as BMI should be routinely considered among children and adolescents.