Waist circumference percentiles for Hispanic‐American children and comparison with other international references

Abstract

Introduction Waist circumference (WC) constitutes an indirect measurement of central obesity in children and adolescents. Objective To provide percentiles of WC for Hispanic‐American children and adolescents, and compare them with other international references. Materials and methods The sample comprised 13 289 healthy children between 6 and 18 years coming from public schools of middle and low socioeconomic levels in different parts of Argentina, Cuba, Spain, Mexico, and Venezuela. The LMS method to calculate WC percentiles was applied. Sex and age differences were assessed using Student's t test and ANOVA (SPSS v.21.0). Comparisons were established with references from the United States, Colombia, India, China, Australia, Kuwait, Germany, Tunisia, Greece, and Portugal. Results WC increases with age in both sexes. Boys show higher WC in P3, P50, and P97. Comparison of 50th and 90th percentiles among populations from diverse sociocultural and geographical contexts shows high variability, not all justified by the measurement method. Discussion and conclusions Specific WC percentiles for sex and age, and P90 cut‐off points are provided; these values are potentially useful to assess central obesity in Hispanic‐American adolescent children.

Body mass index and abdominal waist values are related to increased cardiometabolic risk in schoolchildren aged five to ten years

“…27,29 The WC p>90 is a good variable to estimate excess of android fat in Brazilian children between 8-9 years old, as demonstrated by Filgueiras et al 20 However, the cutoff to WC in children are influenced by sex and ethnicity. [29][30][31] As recently proposed by Santos et al, the WC p>75 can be considered a cutoff for the risk of obesity in Brazilian children aged 6-8 years 14 . In our study, the Spearman correlation demonstrated that WC p>80 was more strictly related to metabolic and pressure alterations than the Z score of BMI.…”

“… 27 , 29 The WC p>90 is a good variable to estimate excess of android fat in Brazilian children between 8–9 years old, as demonstrated by Filgueiras et al 20 However, the cutoff to WC in children are influenced by sex and ethnicity. 29 , 30 , 31 …”

Primary Validation of the Submandibular Skinfold as an Anthropometric Measurement of Cardiometabolic Risk in People with Intellectual Disabilities

“…There was no pubertal stage or maturation differentiation between the groups of children and adolescents The groups categorization by age were founded in evidence of different existing percentiles of anthropometric measurements by sex and age, as well as cut-off points to assess central obesity in children, adolescents, and adults. In fact, BMI and waist circumference show differences by age [27,28], tending to increase its values with age [29] and suggesting that mortality risk is also age related [30].…”