Prevalence of obesity and cardiovascular risk among children and adolescents in the municipality of Santa Cruz do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul.

Cezane Priscila Reuter,Éboni Marília Reuter,Francielle Pasqualotti Meinhardt,Marcelo Dias Camargo,Miriam Beatris Reckziegel,Miria Suzana Burgos,Leandro Tibiriçá Burgos,Lia Gonçalves Possuelo

doi:10.1590/1516-3180.2013.1315518

Cezane Priscila Reuter, Éboni Marília Reuter + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-3180.2013.1315518

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Abstract

Studies have demonstrated that metabolic complications from child obesity, although silent, increase the risk of development of cardiovascular diseases in adulthood. The present paper sought to describe the prevalence of overweight/obesity and analyze the possible relationship between obesity and other cardiovascular risk factors among children and adolescents. Cross-sectional study, conducted in a university. The study included 564 children and adolescents, aged 8 to 17 years. Body mass index and waist circumference were used to evaluate obesity. Other cardiovascular risk factors were evaluated, like systolic and diastolic blood pressure, glycemia, triglycerides and total cholesterol. Descriptive analysis was used for sample characterization, the chi-square test for categorical variables and Pearson's linear correlation for evaluating the relationship between obesity indicators and other cardiovascular risk factors. High prevalence of overweight/obesity was found among the schoolchildren (25.3% among the boys and 25.6% among the girls), along with abdominal obesity (19.0%). The overweight/obese schoolchildren presented higher percentages for the pressure and biochemical indicators, compared with underweight and normal-weight schoolchildren. Body mass index and waist circumference showed a weak correlation with the variables of age and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (P < 0.001), but there was no correlation between these obesity indices and biochemical variables. The high prevalence of overweight/obesity and its relationship with other cardiovascular risk factors demonstrate that it is necessary to develop intervention and prevention strategies from childhood onwards, in order to avoid development of chronic-degenerative diseases in adulthood.

Highlights

Obesity, which is characterized by excessive accumulation of body fat,[1] is associated with several comorbidities, like cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes, high blood pressure, certain types of cancer and other health complications starting in childhood.[1,2,3,4,5]
From the analysis on the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors (Table 1), it was observed that 11.8% of the boys were overweight and 12.7 were obese; among the girls, 13.1% were overweight and 11.9 were obese
With regard to high blood pressure, 6.8% of the boys were at the threshold or were

Summary

Introduction

One of the mechanisms that correlate obesity with cardiovascular conditions is the fact that a huge number of bioactive mediators are released through adipose tissue. These exert an influence on homeostasis of body weight, and on insulin resistance and alterations to lipid profile, blood pressure, coagulation, fibrillosis and inflammation, resulting in endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis.[7] cardiac complications like coronary heart disease, cardiac insufficiency and sudden death have been correlated with a variety of adaptations or alterations to the cardiac structure and function that take place when adipose tissue accumulates excessively.[3,5]. Obesity in children and adolescents has short-term implications and produces risk factors for development of conditions of obesity and resultant comorbidities in adulthood.[5]

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