Waist circumference as an indicator of high blood pressure in preschool obese children.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between waist circumference and blood pressure (BP) to determine if waist circumference was an indicator of BP in preschool children.

METHODS: Body weight, height, waist circumference (WC), hip circumference, and blood pressure of 939 3-6-year-old preschool children were collected.

RESULTS: Systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in obese children were significantly higher than that in normal weight children in both sexes (p<0.001). Overweight children had significantly higher SBP and DBP than normal weight boys (p<0.01). Age- and sex-adjusted Body mass index (BMI) correlated significantly with SBP and DBP. In children aged 3-6 years, age-, sex-and BMI-adjusted waist circumference correlated significantly with SBP, but not with DBP. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves showed a significant ability of BMI, WC and waist-to-height ratio (WtHr) to discriminate high blood pressure in children of both sexes. Multiple linear stepwise regression analysis using SBP as the dependent variable showed that BMI and WC were significant independent factors that influence high blood pressure adjusted for age, WtHr and waist-to-hip circumference ratio (WHr) in boys. When using DBP as the dependent variable, BMI was the only significant independent factor that influenced high blood pressure adjusted for age, WtHr and WHr, in both sex-es.

CONCLUSION: Waist circumference was independently associated with high blood pressure in boys aged 3-6 years. In addition to BMI, increased waist circumference was found to be an indicator of high blood pressure in the preschool children, especially in boys.