Pediatric Obesity – ABC CARDIOL

IJCS

Letter to the Editor

Comments on "Assessment of Overweight/Obesity and Elevation of Blood Pressure in Schools in Rural and Urban Areas in the Backlands of Bahia – A Cross-Sectional Study"

Dear Editor,

I recently came across the article titled “Assessment of Overweight/Obesity and Elevation of Blood Pressure in Schools in Rural and Urban Areas in the Backlands of Bahia – A Cross-Sectional Study,” and I felt compelled to write in. First and foremost, I want to commend the authors for tackling a subject that’s growing more urgent with each passing year. Childhood obesity and elevated blood pressure are emerging earlier and becoming more frequent across the globe, and this study makes a meaningful contribution by examining the problem in a region that’s often overlooked.

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IJCS

Original Article

Childhood Obesity and Systemic Arterial Hypertension in Children and Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study

Rafaella Farias da Franca Almeida et al. Lívia Menezes Escorel Letícia Odete Guedes de Andrade Carvalho Camila Batista Gaudêncio … Lara Ataide Diniz Marcela Leite Marina Romero Costa Alice Barbosa Maia Berenice Lempek dos Santos Michelle Barros de Aguiar Patrícia Vidal de Negreiros Nóbrega Eugênia Moreira Fernandes Montenegro Débora Alencar de Menezes Athayde Jessica Laureano Martins

Abstract

Background:

The increase in obesity cases and the lack of screening and diagnosis of childhood hypertension highlight the need to examine these comorbidities in children.

Objectives:

To investigate the relationships between systemic arterial hypertension (SAH) and childhood obesity (CO) in pediatrics and correlate the obesity level, abdominal circumference (AC), family history, and physical activity (PA) variables.

Methods:

This cross-sectional study assessed age, sex, height, weight, body mass index (BMI), AC, family history, PA, CO, and blood pressure (BP) percentiles. The Chi-square test, Fisher’s Exact test, and Spearman’s correlation were used for data analysis, with a statistical significance level of 5%.

Results:

After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 30 patients aged between 3 and 18 years (incomplete) were evaluated at three different moments. The results showed that 83.3% (n = 25) of the patients were obese and 16.70% (n = 5) had severe obesity. Among them, 20% (n = 6) were diagnosed with SAH. Data showed an independence between CO and SAH (p = 0.702) and between SAH and PA time (p = 0.748). No correlations were observed between SAH and AC (p = 0.313). The history of SAH in first-degree relatives was significantly associated with the diagnosis of SAH (p = 0.004).

Conclusion:

This study showed no correlation between CO and SAH in the evaluated sample, supporting the need for further research in the area.