RESUMOA obesidade infantil, considerada uma pandemia, apresenta custos sócio-econômicos significativos por sua elevada morbimortalidade. Para avaliar a associação entre fatores biológicos e ambientais e a presença de hipertensão arterial (HA), realizou-se estudo transversal com 701 crianças, de 5 a 9 anos, de Feira de Santana, BA. A pressão arterial foi mensurada conforme parâmetros do Update on the 1987 Task Force Report on High Blood Pressure in Children and Adolescents. Definiu-se sobrepeso e obesidade como índice de massa corpórea≥ aos percentis 85 e 95 para idade e sexo, respectivamente. A análise de entrevistas com os responsáveis possibilitou estudo das variáveis sexo, etnia, idade, história familiar para HA e escola freqüentada. Observados como fatores preditivos independentes para HA a presença de sobrepeso (OR= 4,49; ρ= 0,04), obesidade (OR= 13,05; ρ= 0,000) e o fato de estudar em escola privada (OR= 1,93; ρ= 0,13), sugerindo um papel importante de fatores biológicos e ambientais na gênese da HA em crianças. Childhood obesity is considered pandemic with significant social and economical costs because of its high morbidity and mortality. To evaluate the association between biological and environmental factors and infantile arterial hypertension (AH), a cross-sectional study was performed with 701 children, ranging from 5 to 9 years old, from Feira de Santana, BA. The arterial pressure was measured following the criteria of the Update on the 1987 Task Force Report on High Blood Pressure in Children and Adolescents. Overweight and obesity were defined as bodymass index equal or above the 85 th and the 95 th percentiles for age and gender, respectively. Interviews with the children's responsible were used to determine the role of gender, ethnic group, age, familiar history of AH, and type of school. Overweight (OR= 4.49; ρ= 0.04), obesity (OR= 13.05; ρ= 0.000) and studying at private school (OR= 1.93; ρ= 0.13) were observed as predictive and independent factors associated with hypertension. Therefore, biological and environmental factors seem to be involved on the genesis of AH in children.

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Background: Obesity is considered to be caused by a combination of heredity and environmental factors with typical onset during childhood. The aim of this study was to identify family risk factors for the development of obesity in children from Brazil.

As elevated triglyceride (TG) to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) ratio has been described as predictor for cardio metabolic disease with insulin resistance (IR) in the background, the aim was to assess the relationship between this ratio and IR in youth. Oral glucose tolerance test was performed in 318 Brazilian students (175 girls, 11.2 ± 3.2 years, BMI_z-score 1.2 ± 1.4 SD). Measurements: BMI, waist circumference (WC), blood pressure (BP), lipids, insulin and high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP). Excessive weight and abdominal obesity were defined using BMI_z-score and WC and IR by Homeostasis model assessment-insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). TG/HDL-C median was 2.37. There was an association between TG/ HDL-C and WC, systolic and diastolic BP, insulin, HOMA-IR, hsCRP, (p < 0.001). Stratified TG/HDL-C into two groups, based on a cut off point of 2.73 (Group 1: <2.73 and Group 2: ≥2.73). Adjusting for age, gender, ethnicity TG/HDL-C was an independent variable predicting IR (PR = 1.44; CI: 1.07 -1.96; p = 0.018). For every 1 (cm) in WC increased there was an addition of 0.04 of the value of TG/HDL-C and in those with TG/HDL-C ≥ 2.73 for every 10 (cm) increase in WC there was an improve of 4% in the ratio. In conclusion: In youth, the TG/HDL-C ratio could be a useful index for identifying groups with IR.