Body mass index percentiles and elevated blood pressure among children and adolescents

Obesity, hypertension, and diabetes have risen dramatically in Asia, but few cohort studies track age and secular trends in these conditions. We use Cebu (The Philippines) Longitudinal Health and Nutrition survey data to document 1998 to 2015 prevalence and co-occurrence of body mass index (BMI; >25 kg/m2), high waist circumference (WC; >80 cm), elevated blood pressure (EBP; systolic ⩾130 or diastolic ⩾85 mm Hg), and type 2 diabetes among ~2000 women aged 29 to 62 years in 1998; and identify their relationship to community, household, and individual factors using longitudinal logistic regression. Prevalence (1998-2015) rates were 35% to 49%, BMI >25 kg/m2; 32% to 58% high WC; 21% to 59% EBP; and 2% to 14% diabetes. Only 20% of women had none of these conditions in 2015. Diabetes was strongly driven by age and secular trends in high WC related to higher socioeconomic status and urbanization. Hypertension increased with age in lower socioeconomic status rural and more affluent urban women. Results underscore the continuing need for public health measures to prevent obesity and to identify and treat hypertension and diabetes.

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Body Mass Index and Blood Pressure-to-Height Ratio in Predicting Incidence of Hypertension in Serbian Children

Children ◽

10.3390/children7120254 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (12) ◽

pp. 254

Author(s):

Valerija Puškaš ◽

Rada Rakić ◽

Maja Batez ◽

Dejan Sakač ◽

Tatjana Pavlica

Keyword(s):

Blood Pressure ◽

Body Mass Index ◽

Body Mass ◽

Characteristic Curve ◽

Area Under The Curve ◽

Predictive Ability ◽

Elevated Blood Pressure ◽

Elevated Blood ◽

Height Ratio ◽

Early Screening

Background: A new method using blood pressure-to-height ratio for diagnosing elevated blood pressure/hypertension in children has been introduced recently. We aimed to compare blood pressure-to-height ratio (BPHR) and Body Mass Index (BMI) in predicting incidence of hypertension (HTN). Methods: The sample consisted of 1133 boys and 1154 girls aged 7–15. We used the following equations for BPHR: systolic BPHR (SBPHR) = SBP (mm Hg)/height (cm) and diastolic BPHR (DBPHR) = DBP (mm Hg)/height (cm). In order to determine the accuracy of SBPHR, DBPHR and BMI as diagnostic tests for elevated blood pressure (elevated BP), we used the receiveroperating characteristic curve analyses. Results: The area under the curve (AUC) values for BMI ranged from 0.625 to 0.723 with quite low sensitivity rates from 62% to 72.5% and specificities from 58.2% to 67.3% showing a modest ability to identify children with elevated BP and HTN. On the contrary, BPHR showed a great predictive ability to identify elevated BP and HTN with AUC values of 0.836 to 0.949 for SBP and from 0.777 to 0.904 for DBP. Furthermore, the sensitivity ranged from 78.5% to 95.7%, and the specificity from 73.9% to 87.6%. Conclusion: the current study showed that BPHR is an accurate index for detecting elevated BP and HTN in children aged 7 to 15 years and can be used for early screening.

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