Abstract
Overweight and obesity at an early age are important criteria for predicting chronic diseases. Each anthropometric method available to assess obesity has its limitations. Recently, neck circumference (NC) has received greater attention as a new evaluation index. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between NC and overweight in Chinese Yi adolescents. A total of 647 Chinese Yi male and female students, aged 13–18 years, were randomly selected from a junior high school and a senior middle school in Leshan, Sichuan Province of China. The measurement indexes included height, weight, waist circumference (WC), and NC, and clinical information was collected by trained physicians. The neck cutoff values were determined through the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and the area under the curve (AUC). The correlation among NC, body mass index (BMI), and WC was determined by Pearson's correlation coefficient. The ROC analysis revealed that the AUC values were 0.79–0.95 for boys and 0.83–0.91 for girls. The correlation among NC, BMI, and WC in obese boys and girls was higher than 0.70 in both genders. In addition, the NC cutoff values of high BMI ranged from 31.0 cm to 36.1 cm for boys and 31.2 cm to 34.5 cm for girls, respectively. There was a significant positive correlation between NC and obesity in Chinese Yi adolescents. The NC can be used as an additional index to predict the obesity of Chinese Yi adolescents.
Highlights
Overweight and obesity can lead to a variety of chronic diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus
Among the 647 subjects, 342 were male subjects, the mean age observed was 14.38 years, and 305 were females. e results of the descriptive statistics (Table 1) revealed that the age between boys and girls has no significant difference (p > 0.05). e weight, height, neck circumference (NC), and waist circumference (WC) were higher in boys than in girls, but the body mass index (BMI) was lower in girls
Overweight and obesity can lead to a variety of chronic diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disorders, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus. e present anthropometric methods for the evaluation of obesity have their limitations
Summary
Overweight and obesity can lead to a variety of chronic diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus. The incidence of obesity has increased up to 300% over the last 30 years. Obesity has grown rapidly in Chinese children and adolescents in the past 30 years. E rate of overweight and obesity among Chinese children and adolescents within 6–17 years of age was 9.6% and 6.2%, respectively, in 2012, and this was increased by 113.3% and 195.2%, respectively, in 2002 [3]. Several studies have investigated the association between obesity and its markers with a variety of chronic diseases and even correlation with malignancies that may threaten public health in China. An important approach to control obesity and overweight would be to develop a practical method of diagnosis for this disease which is simple, reliable, and low cost for the assessment of adolescents, especially in primary healthcare. An important approach to control obesity and overweight would be to develop a practical method of diagnosis for this disease which is simple, reliable, and low cost for the assessment of adolescents, especially in primary healthcare. ere are several anthropometric methods used to assess obesity and overweight. ome techniques are applicable for evaluation of obesity like measurement of waist, hip circumference, weight, and height; there is still controversy about the effectiveness of some methods for measuring overweight and obesity in children and adolescents [6,7,8]
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