WAIST-TO-HEIGHT RATIO AS A SCREENING TOOL FOR IDENTIFYING OBESITY IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

Veton Ademi, Sadi Bexheti, Alajdin Hasani, Muhamed Tairi, Beshra Elezi, Ema Bexheti

Abstract

Background: Childhood and adolescence obesity is growing worldwide and raises concerns that overweight or obese children and adolescents are at greater risk of becoming obese than adults. An early diagnosis is very important, and for this purpose, WHtR is a very easy method to use as well as to be interpreted by healthcare workers. Objective: The main purpose was to investigate the prevalence of childhood and adolescence obesity in the Tetovo region, North Macedonia by analyzing the waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), which has recently attracted attention as a very important anthropometric index for central obesity. Methods: The character of this research is "Cross-sectional" and was conducted in primary and secondary schools in the region of Tetovo, North Macedonia, during the period April to June 2019 with 625 male and female students aged 12-17 years. The results were processed with statistical programs STATISTICA 10.0 and SPSS 20.0. Results: The prevalence of overweight and obesity / abdominal obesity was respectively in 8.16% who belonged to the category increased risk/high risk and 0.64% who belonged to the category very high risk. Statistically significant results with p<0.05 were found between the mean values of skinfold thickness in relation to the WHtR. Conclusion: The waist-to-height ratio is much safer than BMI in predicting Obesity and has a stronger association with cardiovascular disease as well as being better at predicting metabolic syndrome and the risks that can come from it.

Pages: 194 - 202