Abstract
Our aim was to verify the tracking of body adiposity indicators from childhood to adolescence and analyze the mediation effects of BMI on the stability of body adiposity. Our sample was composed by 375 children (197 boys). The children were followed-up over 3 years. Body mass and stature were measured as anthropometric indicators. Body adiposity was estimated through the subcutaneous skinfold method, with measures of triceps (TRSF) and subscapular skinfolds (SSSF). Skinfolds were analyzed singly and agglutinated through the sum of skinfolds (∑SF). The sample was categorized into tertiles, and thereafter, the kappa coefficient and McNemar test were adopted to verify stability. For continuous measures, the Intra-Class Correlation coefficient (ICC) was used. Moreover, mediation analyzes were used according to Baron and Kenny with the Sobel test to verify mediation effects. The significance level adopted was 5%. Adiposity indicators increased during the 3 years of follow-up in both sexes (p<0.05). ICCs in all indicators of adiposity were between 0.84 and 0.94 for boys and 0.86 and 0.94 for girls, indicating high tracking. Moreover, 70% of subjects remained in the highest tertile of body adiposity. However, no differences were observed in tertile changes (p>0.05). BMI at the age of adiposity rebound partially mediated all indicators of adiposity from childhood (baseline) to adolescence (3 years later) in both sexes (p<0.001). Thus, moderate to high tracking of body adiposity indicators between childhood and adolescence was verified. Moreover, BMI at the age of adiposity rebound partially mediated the relationship between adiposity in childhood (baseline) and in adolescence (3 years of follow-up).
Highlights
An excess of body fat in children and adolescents is associated with the development of several cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and others [1,2,3]
In the case of anthropometric measures, we highlight that body mass increased more than 40% for boys (33.5 vs. 47.7; p < 0.001) and girls (32.0 vs. 46.1; p < 0.001), while stature and body mass index (BMI) increased by only 14% and 10% respectively
Our main findings indicate that body adiposity indicators presented high tracking for both sexes, indicating few crossings in individual paths of the analyzed variables between childhood and adolescence
Summary
An excess of body fat in children and adolescents is associated with the development of several cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and others [1,2,3]. An excess of body fat during childhood and adolescence can track to adulthood; more than a half obese adolescents become obese adults Given this context, obesity during childhood and adolescence has become a public health priority [7] and interventions aiming at the normalization of the ponderal index of body adiposity should be conducted during early ages to minimize morbidity/mortality risk in adulthood [5,7]. Obesity during childhood and adolescence has become a public health priority [7] and interventions aiming at the normalization of the ponderal index of body adiposity should be conducted during early ages to minimize morbidity/mortality risk in adulthood [5,7] In this way, the central aspect of studies of behaviors and characteristics of subjects during childhood and adolescence and posteriorly adulthood, refers to the concept of tracking, which is the tendency of remain in the same channel or relative position of a given attribute within the group over time [8,9]. As the transition between childhood and adolescence is a period of several changes in body dimensions as body mass, stature, and adiposity [10,11,12], verifying the kinetic of body adiposity during this transition should be an important strategy in combating obesity
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