Premium
30‐year cross‐sectional trends in waist‐to‐height ratio in Australian school age children; 1985 to 2015
Author(s) -
Hardy L L,
Xu J,
Guo C Z,
Garnett S P
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
acta paediatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/apa.14565
Subject(s) - waist to height ratio , medicine , abdominal obesity , cross sectional study , demography , obesity , population , waist , pediatrics , environmental health , pathology , sociology
Aim To report 30‐year changes in the proportion of children with abdominal obesity measured by waist‐to‐height ratio (WHtR) ≥ 0.5. Methods Secondary analysis of WHtR ≥ 0.5 data on Australian children age 7 to 15 years from five national cross‐sectional population surveys conducted in 1985, 1995, 2007, 2012 and 2015. Changes in the proportions of children with a WHtR ≥ 0.5 across survey years, by age and sex were assessed using chi‐squared tests. Results Between 1985 and 2012, the proportion of children with WHtR ≥ 0.5 increased from 8.6% [95%CI: 8.0, 9.2] to 25.1% [95%CI: 23.5, 26.7]. An increase of ~5% each decade was observed between 1985 and 2007, and a 6.6% increase was observed between 2007 and 2012. Overall, there was a non‐significant decrease in the proportion of children with WHtR ≥ 0.5 between 2012 (25.1% [95%CI: 23.5, 26.7] and 2015 (23.3% [95%CI: 21.6, 25.2]. Conclusion Abdominal obesity has increased over the last 30 years in Australian children. In 2015, one in five children had WHtR ≥ 0.5, a marker of cardiometabolic risk in children. Our finding highlights the importance of including WHtR as a routine measurement in primary health care and population health surveys. This information is needed to guide policy and practice to manage long‐term cardiovascular risk in children.