Assessment of body mass index and cardiovascular risk in children and adolescents of a private school in the city of Marilia, SP

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate BMI and cardiovascular risk in children and adolescents of a private school in the city of Marília/SP. Methods: We assessed 124 students (62 female and 62 male) aging between 4 and 18 years. A physical examination (anthropometry) was done; for BMI classification we used as cutoff points defined by Cole et al. (2000) and Association for the Study of Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome (ABESO, 1998). Statistical analysis was done by applying the chi-square test. Results: We found a prevalence of 28.8% of overweight/ low CVR, being higher in females (19.3%) than in males (10.5%) and 11.3% of obesity/ moderate CVR. There was a significant association between overweight/ low CVR with females in the total sample (p = 0.019) and at the age of 9 (p = 0.044) and obesity/ moderate CVR with males (p = 0.019) in the total sample. Conclusion: The prevalence of overweight and obesity in the school studied is greater than that found for this age group in the Brazilian population; the female students presented a higher incidence of overweight and low risk, especially at the age of 9 and the males presented a higher frequency of obesity and moderate risk. These findings point to the importance of preventive action on obesity and risk factors in children and adolescents.