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Associations between adiposity indicators and elevated blood pressure among Chinese children and adolescents

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 29, pages 236–240 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Adiposity is closely related to elevated blood pressure (BP); however, which adiposity indicator is the best predictor of elevated BP among children and adolescents is unclear. To clarify this, 99 366 participants aged 7–17 years from the Chinese National Survey on Students’ Constitution and Health in 2010 were included in this study. The adiposity indicators, including weight, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), hip circumference, body adiposity index (BAI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and skinfold thickness, were converted into z-scores before use. The associations between elevated BP and adiposity indicators z-scores were assessed by using logistic regression model and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). In general, BAI, BMI and WHtR z-scores were superior for predicting elevated BP compared with weight, waist circumference, hip circumference, WHR and skinfold thickness z-scores. In both sexes, BMI z-score revealed slightly higher AUCs than other indicators. Our findings suggest that general adiposity indicators were equivalent, if not superior, to abdominal adiposity indicators to predict elevated BP. BMI could be a better predictor of elevated BP than other studied adiposity indicators in children.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank WK Liao, WH Xing, X Zhang and the members of Chinese National Survey on Students’ Constitution and Health for providing access to the survey data. We also appreciate all the students who participated in the survey for their cooperation. This work is supported by the grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (APP1045000) to ZW; Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20120001110016) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (81172683) and Research Special Fund for Public Welfare Industry of Health of China (201202010) to JM.

Author Contributions

Study concept and design: BD, JM and ZW. Acquisition of data: JM. Analysis and interpretation of data: BD, ZW, JM and H-JW. Draft of the manuscript: BD. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: ZW, JM and H-JW. Administrative, technical and material support: ZW, JM and H-JW.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    B Dong, Z Wang, H-J Wang & J Ma

  2. Centre for Chronic Disease, School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Herston, Queensland, Australia

    B Dong & Z Wang

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  1. B Dong
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Correspondence to Z Wang or J Ma.

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Dong, B., Wang, Z., Wang, HJ. et al. Associations between adiposity indicators and elevated blood pressure among Chinese children and adolescents. J Hum Hypertens 29, 236–240 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/jhh.2014.95

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