Background: The association between elevated blood pressure (BP) and childhood obesity has been documented in several studies. However, little is known the difference in BP levels among children and adolescents with different patterns of fat distribution. The present study examined the association of subcutaneous fat distributional pattern with obesity and elevated BP among children and adolescents.
Methods: A total of 38,687 students (19,386 boys and 19,301 girls) aged 7-17 years participated in the study. Body mass index (BMI) cutoff points recommended by the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) were used to define overweight and general obesity. Abdominal obesity was defined as waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) ≥ 0.5. Relatively high BP (RHBP) status was defined as systolic blood pressure (SBP) and/or diastolic blood pressure (DBP) ≥ 95th percentile for age and gender. All individuals were classified into four groups (Q1-Q4) according to the age and sex-specific quartiles of subscapular to triceps skinfold thickness ratio (STR), the prevalence rates of overweight, general obesity, abdominal obesity and RHBP among the four groups were compared.
Results: In both boys and girls, significant differences in the prevalence rates of overweight, general obesity, abdominal obesity and RHBP were observed among the four groups, an increasing trend was observed from the Q1 (STR <25 th) group to the Q4 (STR ≥ 75th) group (p < 0.01). Children and adolescents with high STR had higher prevalence of overweight, obesity and RHBP than their counterparts with low STR (p < 0.01).
Conclusion: Truncal pattern of subcutaneous fat distribution is associated with obesity and elevated BP among children and adolescents. Public health attention should not only focus on the amount of body fat, but also on the distributional pattern of body fat.
Keywords: Skinfold thickness; adolescent; blood pressure; distribution; obesity.