Obese children and adolescents. Waist-hip ratio and cardiovascular risk

In obese adults body fat distribution is more closely associated with cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes and gout than the degree of obesity; the android, abdominal body fat pattern carrying more risk than the gynoid, femoral form. For characterizing the different types of fat distribution the ratio of waist to hip girth (WHR) is commonly used. The question was whether these facts can already be demonstrated in obese children. In the studied group of 69 obese children, aged between 3-16 years (mean = 10.8 years) with a mean of 47% overweight no correlations between percentage overweight and waist hip ratio could be found. Better correlations of serum triglycerides, total- and LDL-cholesterol, the atherogenic index LDL/HDL-cholesterol, fasting insulin level, oral glucose tolerance and blood pressure were obtained with percentage overweight than with waist-hip-ratio. HDL-cholesterol was the only parameter showing better and significant correlation with waist-hip-ratio than with percentage overweight. These results are in contrast to the situation in adults but are comparable with other studies in normal weighed and obese children, where correlations of waist hip ratio with body fat and risk factors were low in childhood, becoming higher in adolescence. Only after onset of puberty does waist hip ratio seem to be an indicator for body fat distribution and for possibly associated additional risk factors as in adults. For estimation of the cardiovascular risk in obese children, determination of WHR need not to be recommended.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)