Kids' Waist Sizes: Warning Sign?

There may be a new way of determining the children at high risk of health problems later in life stemming from childhood obesity.

Obesity in general increases the risk of developing serious health problems like heart disease and diabetes.

And, points out The Early Show medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay, doctors are on the lookout these days for a group of risk factors known together as metabolic syndrome.
They include excess weight, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, low levels of HDL or so-called good cholesterol, glucose intolerance, and elevated insulin levels.

Since the prevalence of childhood obesity has doubled in the last two decades, doctors are looking for these warning signs in kids as well as adults.

A new study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine looked at whether a simple measurement of waist size is useful in identifying kids with metabolic syndrome.

Waist circumference, Senay explains, is a measurement of dangerous abdominal fat, one of the components of metabolic syndrome. Excess abdominal fat is thought to be a better indicator of heart disease risk than body mass index, or BMI, which is a commonly used measurement of obesity that is calculated using a height and weight formula.The researchers analyzed data from 84 kids aged six to 13, of whom 68 were overweight or obese. They found children with abdominal obesity determined by a waist size above the ninetieth percentile of the study group had increased metabolic syndrome risk factors such as high blood pressure, insulin resistance and high cholesterol. The researchers say abdominal obesity may be an especially important risk factor for insulin resistance syndrome in children.

Kids with multiple risk factors are at much higher risk of disease later in life, Senay says. Experts believe if there is no intervention, it's likely many of these kids will go on to develop type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

The goal is to see if this kind of early screening can be useful in targeting kids for lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise to avoid problems later in life.

The waist size study comes on the heels of another new study that shows tobacco smoke increases the risk for metabolic syndrome among teenagers.

The study, in the journal Circulation, found that six percent of teens aged 12 to 19 had metabolic syndrome, and that the numbers increased with exposure to tobacco smoke. In kids who were overweight, the numbers increased even more. Although it's not understood how tobacco smoke might contribute to metabolic syndrome, obviously we cannot forget the important effort to prevent kids from smoking and to protect them from second hand smoke.