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Association of neck circumference and obesity status with elevated blood pressure in children

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 28, pages 263–268 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

High blood pressure (BP) and overweight/obesity are increasingly prevalent in children. We examined the associations of excess weight indicators including neck circumference (NC) and body mass index (BMI) with high BP in children. We hypothesized that high NC is associated with elevated BP. We utilized cross-sectional anthropometric and BP data on 1058 children aged 6–18 years. Patients were classified into weight and NC categories according to published guidelines. Prehypertension was defined as systolic or diastolic BP levels between 90th and 95th percentile for gender, age and height. Hypertension signifies systolic and/or diastolic BP levels ⩾95th percentile for age, gender and height. The prevalence of elevated BP was 29.2% (prehypertension=10.1%, hypertension=19.1%). The prevalence of overweight and obesity was 19.0 and 18.7%, respectively. Rates of wide NC increased progressively with BMI categories by 8.8, 29.4 and 68.7% among normal weight, overweight and obese children, respectively. Within each BMI category, the unadjusted odds ratio for elevated BP was significantly higher in children with wide NC than those with normal NC (normal weight OR=1.78 (1.0–3.1), P=0.04); overweight OR=2.74 (1.5–5.2), P=0.001); obese OR=2.44 (1.3–4.6), P=0.006)). Increasing NC and BMI are associated with elevated BP in children. Joint presence of wide NC and high BMI is associated with significantly high rates of elevated BP. NC measurement may be a helpful tool to detect the presence of elevated BP in children.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all the study participants for their time and willingness. We also thank Ms Constance Burke for help with patient recruitment and immense help with the Institution Review Board process for this study. We also thank various postgraduate students of the University of Michigan Center for Statistical Consultation and Research (CSCAR) for helpful suggestions with coding and data analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Section of Pediatric Anesthesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    O O Nafiu, A Zepeda, C Curcio & Y Prasad

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  1. O O Nafiu
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  2. A Zepeda
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Correspondence to O O Nafiu.

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Nafiu, O., Zepeda, A., Curcio, C. et al. Association of neck circumference and obesity status with elevated blood pressure in children. J Hum Hypertens 28, 263–268 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/jhh.2013.93

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