Purpose: To examine the prevalence of coronary risk factors in Mexican adolescents, and their relations to school type, gender, and residence in urban and rural areas.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 3121 junior high school students, aged 12 to 16 years, attending urban schools (eight public, n = 1850, two private, n = 480) and three rural public (n = 791) schools. Weight, height, waist circumference, blood pressure, and fasting glucose and lipid-lipoprotein levels were measured. Tobacco smoking and physical activity were also ascertained. The prevalence rates of cardiovascular risk factors were determined by gender and school type.
Results: Obesity, overweight, high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, and physical inactivity were higher for urban than rural adolescents. The prevalence of the low HDL-C level was exceedingly high in adolescents of three school types (> 30%) but particularly in male rural students (48.9%). Compared with rural students, high LDL-cholesterol was twice as high in private schoolchildren. The prevalence of impaired fasting glucose was .35% in the whole population and much higher in obese males (1.6%) and obese females (2.4%).
Conclusions: Our findings highlight an epidemic of coronary risk factors mainly in adolescents living in the urban area, suggesting the importance of environmental factors.