INTRODUCTION. Abdominal obesity at the developmental age poses the risk of metabolic syndrome also in children and youth. Early diagnosis based on current appropriate norms and recommendations of main paediatric and scientific societies appears to be of great importance. The aim of the study was to work out percentile distributions of waist-to- -height ratio (WHtR) in children and adolescents from the city of Łódź and evaluation of their usefulness in examination of abdominal obesity.
MATERIAL AND METHODS. A total of 26,542 children and youth (13,358 girls and 13,184 boys) aged 7-19 years were examined and subjected to measurements of basic anthropometric parameters (body mass and height, waist and hip circumferences). The descriptive statistics and percentile distributions were used. The latent moderated structural (LMS) equations method based on Box-Cox transformation was used for construction of percentile curves.
RESULTS. Mean values of WHtR in boys in all age groups were higher than in girls. The percentile curves of WHtR for boys and girls are similar and very stable (horizontal line). The prevalance of abodominal obesity in girls was distinctly lower as compared for boys (6.8% for girls vs. 7.6% for boys; p < 0.05).
CONCLUSIONS. The presented percentile distributions of WHtR for school children and youth are usefulness for evaluation of abdominal obesity and should be used together with the general assessment of child’s obesity, e.g. while applying local percentile distributions of the BMI index.