Metabolic syndrome (MS) is common among children and adolescents. Age- and gender-specific references or age-, gender- and height-specific references were used in pediatric MS definitions. More recently, an increasing number of studies documented that the ratio of waist circumference (WC) to height (WHtR) and blood pressure to height (BPHR) were easy anthropometric indexes for detection of obesity and hypertension in children and adolescents. For these reasons, height-corrected MS definition was proposed. WHtR and BPHR were used as alternatives to WC and BP in the definition of MS. In the present review, we discuss the possibility of the height-corrected MS definition for identifying MS in children.
Keywords: adolescents; children; diagnosis; metabolic syndrome.