Waist Circumference Reference Values for Screening Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Chinese Children and Adolescents

Intensified association between waist circumference and hypertension in abdominally overweight children

“…Normal WC was defined as WC < sexand age-specific 75th percentile, and an abdominally overweight child was defined as a child with WC ≥ sex-and age-specific 75th percentile according to the reference values for screening cardiovascular risk factors in Chinese children and adolescents [19,20]. Because the distribution of WC changes as children mature, and the patterns of growth also differ between boys and girls, WC was transformed into sex-and age-specific standard deviation (SD) scores (z-scores) to allow the association between WC and hypertension can be evaluated independent of the sex and age of the child [21].…”

Waist Circumference, Health-Related Physical Fitness, and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors in Chinese Adolescents

“…The splitting approach seemed reasonable, because a metaanalysis showed that the relative risk for CVD was higher among adults who were below the 20th to 25th percentile of the fitness distribution compared with those in higher percentiles. 19 However, the inability to show significant differences between Low-PFI and High-PFI may be also due to the use of quartile split to categorize groups. Considering that youth are the most physically fit segment of the population, healthy subjects in our study might have been categorized into the low fitness group; thus, bias toward the null may occur because of misclassification.…”

“…The approach seemed reasonable for health-related cutoff points, because among adults, a meta-analysis showed that the relative risk for CVD was higher among those who were below the 20th to 25th percentile of the fitness distribution compared with those in higher percentiles. 19 Children were grouped into the following groups based on their WC and PFI: Low-WC/High-PFI, Low-WC/Low-PFI, High-WC/High-PFI, and High-WC/Low-PFI. The differences in the characteristics between boys and girls were determined using t-test and Chi-square test, where appropriate.…”

Early Identification of Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Adolescents and Follow-Up Intervention Strategies

“…Waist circumference is an indicator for central adiposity (World Health Organization, www.intechopen.com 2011) and has been used as a predictor for the development of cardiovascular disease (Lee, Huxley, Wildman & Woodward, 2008) and diabetes (Huxley et al, 2010). Similar to the BMI, there is no one standard criteria percentile for waist to hip circumference for children and adolescents due to differences in growth rates and patterns among different population groups (Ma et al, 2010). …”