Prehypertension in Children and Adolescents: Association with Body Weight and Neck Circumference

Abstract

Objective The present study was undertaken to investigate the role of neck circumference (NC) in predicting prehypertension in children and adolescents. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study including 6,802 children and adolescents (3,631 boys and 3,171 girls) aged 5-18 years. Main anthropometric data and related information were collected. Results The prevalence of prehypertension was 14.4%, 16.4% and 17.1% in normal weight, overweight and obese group respectively. Among the participants with normal body mass index (BMI), higher NC was significantly associated with increased odds of prehypertension (OR: 1.439; 95% CI: 1.118 to 1.853) after adjustment for age, gender, BMI and WC. Significant associations between NC and either systolic blood pressure (SBP) (β=0.581 mmHg) or diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (β=0.236 mmHg) were found in the linear regression. No significant ORs were observed either in overweight or in obese categories. Conclusion We concluded that additional measure of NC might expand the ability of BMI for the identification of prehypertension in normal weight children and adolescents.

Neck circumference as a complementary measure to identify excess body weight in children aged 13-24 months

“…The cutoff points described in this study should therefore be used with caution, as NC is a proxy for upper-body subcutaneous fat. 11 Furthermore, the moderate correlations and low specificity observed in the present study may be a consequence of the rapid growth and development that occurs during early years. Third, the cross-sectional nature of the data does not allow conclusions relating to causality.…”

“…In addition to obesity, 13 NC measurements have been shown to be suitable for assessing other risk factors in adults and children, including metabolic syndrome, 10,26 obstructive sleep apnea, 16 perioperative adverse respiratory events, 13 and cardio-metabolic risk factors. 9,11,14 Furthermore, in addition to its accuracy in identifying excess body weight and risk of other related health outcomes, La Berge et al 27 have reported that NC showed good inter-and intra-rater reliability and that it does not require multiple measurements for precision and reliability. The technique can also easily be learned by community caregivers and is simple to apply in general practice and epidemiological studies.…”

Neck circumference and prehypertension

“…Guo et al [23] found that measurement of neck circumference might improve identification of prehypertension in normal weight children and adolescents beyond BMI. Kurtoglu et al [24] found that neck circumference was associated with blood pressure in Turkey obese children.…”

Accuracy of Neck Circumference in Classifying Overweight and Obese US Children

“…To date, a relatively large number of studies have been conducted to examine the associations between NC and varying health indicators in children (i.e., cardiovascular risk factors [24–26], prehypertension [27], and perioperative adverse respiratory events [28]). However, a limited body of scientific evidence has been established to determine whether or not NC measurement can serve as a useful tool for classifying childhood overweight/obesity.…”