ESPE Abstracts

Background: Central obesity among adolescents has been on the rise globally and there is ample evidence that to suggest that central obesity is a strong predictor of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 Diabetes.

Aims/Objectives: To determine the prevalence of Central Obesity among adolescent school children aged 14-18 years in rural Kerala.

Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional, school-based study among the adolescent school children in rural Kerala, South India, was carried out to determine the prevalence of Central Obesity among adolescent school children from 1^st January 2018 through 1^st January 2019. Demographic, anthropometrics, clinical data and laboratory, and outcomes were obtained. All the data was interpreted using descriptive and inferential statistics on R software and SPSS version 21.0.

Results: Among the 1146 adolescents, 567 (49.4%) were males and 579 (50.6%) were females. The prevalence of central obesity was 3.3% by the IOTF classification of waist circumference (WC) of >90^th centile, 13.7% by at risk for metabolic syndrome waist circumference >70^th centile and 17.5% by waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). Both waist circumference and waist to height ratio were positively correlated with BMI. The prevalence of abdominal obesity was higher in girls than boys. 5.4% had prehypertension, 3.5 % had stage 1 and 0.8% had Stage 2 hypertension. A positive correlation between systolic and diastolic blood pressure with WC >90^th centile and WC> 70^th centile was seen. Frequent snacking, increased screen time, decreased sleep duration, decreased physical activity and family history of obesity were strongly associated with central obesity.

Conclusion: The prevalence of central obesity was high among adolescent school children in Rural Kerala. Waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio were positively associated with systolic and diastolic hypertension.