Abstract
This study aims to examine association between sodium intake and overweight/obesity among Chinese children and adolescents. Data were obtained from China National Nutrition and Health Surveillance (CNNHS), 2010–2012. All participants recruited in this study aged 7–18 years old and provided complete dietary data on three-day consecutive 24 h dietary recalls combining with the household weighing method. Body Mass Index (BMI) was used to define overweight/obesity, and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) was used to define abdominal obesity. Sodium intake showed association with risk of overweight/obesity assessed by BMI in the highest tertile group with OR of 1.48 (95%CI 1.13–1.94) and 1.89 (95%CI 1.33–2.67) for WHtR. After adjusted for gender, age, household income, area, energy, carbohydrates, protein, fat, saturated fatty acids, and fiber intake, the relationship between sodium intake and overweight/obesity and abdominal obesity are not changed. The same results were founded in subjects aged 10–18 years old. Our results reveal a positive association between sodium intake and overweight/obesity in Chinese children and adolescents, independent of energy consumption.
Highlights
Over the past several decades, the rate of obesity among children and adolescents has been increasing rapidly
After adjusting for socio-demographic variables and energy intake the positive relationship between sodium intake and overweight/obesity was founded, the same positive relationship was found between sodium density and overweight/obesity and abdominal obesity
Some studies shown that the risk of obesity increases with sodium intake, which may be due to the increase in sodium intake is accompanied by an increase in energy intake [14,26], such as Libuda et al presume that the association between high-salt diet and obesity is related to increased intake of high-energy salty foods like cheese [15], Hoffmann et al reported that obese group consumed more salt along with more food intake [27]
Summary
Over the past several decades, the rate of obesity among children and adolescents has been increasing rapidly. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that more than 124 million children and adolescents (6% of girls and 8% of boys) were obese in 2016, and half of them lived in Asia [1]. With the rapid change of living lifestyles in China, the prevalence rate of overweight has raised to 15.1% and obesity has raised to 10.7% in 2017 for children and adolescents [2,3]. Development of overweight/obesity can persist throughout childhood and even affect weight in adulthood, and evidence shows that obese children and adolescents are at increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and cancer in adulthood [4,5,6]. Studies have continuously shown that a high-sodium diet will increase the risk of overweight/obesity [8,9,10,11,12]
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