Background: Hypertension is related to increased body fat, which can be evaluated by anthropometric indicators. The aim of this study was to determine the predictive power of anthropometric indicators and to establish their cutoff points as discriminators of high blood pressure.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 793 schoolchildren aged 10-14 years. Six anthropometric indices were used: body mass index-z-score (BMI-z-score), waist circumference (WC), waist-toheight ratio (WHtR), a body shape index (ABSI), body roundness index (BRI) and conicity index (CI). Elevated blood pressure (EBP) and hypertension (HTN) were characterized by values ≥ 90th and <95th percentile and ≥ 95th percentile for systolic and/or diastolic blood pressure, respectively. The predictive power of anthropometric indices was analyzed by sex using the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC).
Results: The prevalence of EBP and HTN was 11.0% and 14.8%, respectively. According to the analyses of the ROC curve, WC provided the largest area under the curve (AUC) value, while CI showed the lowest AUC value in predicting elevated blood pressure in the total sample. The BMI z-score provided the largest area under the curve (AUC) value (0.722), followed by WHtR (0.709) and BRI (0.709), in predicting hypertension in boys.
Conclusions: BMI z-score and WC may be the best predictors of EBP and BMI z-score for HTN among Jordanian schoolchildren.
Keywords: Obesity; anthropometric indices; high blood pressure; prediction; schoolchildren.