1.Association of lipid profile and waist circumferenceas cardiovascular risk factors foroverweight & obesityamong school children in QatarDiabetes Metab Syndr Obes. 2012;5:425-32.Nasser M Rizk, Mervat Yousef.

2. Abstract BACKGROUND Childhood obesity is a national as well as worldwide problem.Up to one out of every five children in the U. S. is overweight or obese, and this number iscontinuing to rise. Children have fewer weight-related health and medical problems than adults.Children become overweight and obese for a variety of reasons. The most common causesare genetic factors, lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating patterns, or a combination ofthese factors. Only in rare cases is being overweight caused by a medical condition such as a hormonalproblem. A physical exam and some blood tests can rule out the possibility of a medicalcondition as the cause for obesity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of overweight and obesity amongQatari children with lipid profile and waist circumference as adverse cardiovascular riskfactors in children aged 611 years.International Obesity Task Force(IOTF) reference values were used to screen for overweightand obesity. 3. Abstract contd..Results In total, 31.71% of boys and 32.78% of girls were overweight or obese, all subjectsCompared with children who were overweight or obese. Overweight and obese children screened against International Obesity Task Force reference values had a significantly increased risk of High waist circumference (P.0.0001) Hypertriglyceridemia (P = 0.002) Low HDL-C (P = 0.017) Atherogenic index (P = 0.021)Conclusion Overweight and obese children screened by International Obesity Task Force reference valuesare at increased risk of cardiovascular disease in adulthood. 4. Introduction Childhood obesity is a public health problem worldwide. Epidemiological andclinical investigations have revealed that the association between obesity andcardiovascular risk factors begins early in life. Several cross-sectional studies have shown associations between measurements ofchildhood adiposity, most commonly body mass index, and cardiovascular risk. Abdominal obesity as measured by waist circumference is associated with asignificant risk of incident cardiovascular events in children. 810 Childhood obesity has been associated with an abnormal lipid profile similarto that observed in adults, which could contribute to further cardiovascular risk. Several recent studies have addressed the prevalence of pediatric obesity in Qatarwithout addressing its association with important health issues, such asdevelopment of cardiovascular disease in adulthood.This study extends our recent work, which has demonstrated a significantprevalence of metabolic syndrome and its associated features among overweightand obese children. Identifying and controlling childhood obesity is an important goal in theprevention of cardiovascular 5. ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to evaluate cardiovascularrisk factors in overweight and obese Qatari children usingInternational Obesity Task Force (IOTF) reference values as ascreening tool. In this research, we studied the associationof overweight and obesity with lipid profile and waistcircumference as adverse cardiovascular risk factors inQatari children aged 611 years. 6. METHOD A cross-sectional study in a randomly selected sample wasconducted in 315 Qatari primary school students aged 611 years. Anthropometric measurements, including Body weight, Height,Waist circumference, and Body mass index were calculated for 151girls and 164 boys. Weight categories were based on International Obesity Task Forcereference values. FBS Cholesterol HDL-C =all these values was measured LDL-C Triglyceride Atherogenic index = calculated. 7. The sample included 151 girls (47.9%) and 164 boys (52.1%). Table 1 shows themean values and standard deviations for the anthropometric and biochemicalcharacteristics of the study subjects by gender and age. 8. Figure 1 shows the overall frequencies ofweight status using IOTF categories by gender.The prevalence of obesity was 21.95% in boys and 15.56% in girls, whereas the prevalence of overweightwas 9.76% and 17.22% in boys and girls, respectivelyUsing Chi-square testing, no significant difference was observed between the prevalence of obesity in boys(P = 0.706) and that in girls (P = 0.656) using IOTF reference values. 9. Anthropometric and biochemical variables by IOTF values based on overweight and obesityUsing the IOTF criteria, mean waist circumference was significantly higher in overweight and obese children thanin children who were not overweight or obese (P 0.0001), as shown in Table 2.Mean serum triglyceride levels were significantly higher in overweight and obese children than in those who werenot overweight or obese (P = 0.002), while HDL-C was significantly lower in overweight or obese children than inchildren who were not overweight and obese (P = 0.017). No significant differences were detected in serumglucose, total cholesterol, or LDL-C between overweight and obese children and those who were not overweight or obese (Table 2). 10. Table 3 shows the number of children at abnormal cardiovascular risk. Overweight andobese children had significantly higher percentages of the following adversecardiovascular risk factors:hypercholesterolemia (P < 0.0001), hypertriglyceridemia (P < 0.0001),increased waist circumference (P 0.0001) 11. Correlation between cardiovascular risk and lipid variablesBivariate partial correlations between waist circumference and biochemical markers forcardiovascular risk after adjustment for age and gender are summarized in Table 4.Circulating total cholesterol (r = 0.465, P = 0.003), triglycerides (r = 0.563, P , 0.001), andLDL-C (r = 0.267, P = 0.003) showed a significant positive correlation with waistcircumference, but HDL-C showed a significant negative correlation with waistcircumference (r = 0.361, P = .004). 12. ORs and 95% confidence interval (CIs)were calculated using logistic regressionanalysis (Figure 2) between overweightand obesity as an independent variableand the study cardiovascular risk factorsfor all subjects as independent variables,ie, hyperglycemia, hypercholesterolemia,hypertriglyceridemia, increased LDL-C,increased waist circumference, increasedatherogenic index, and decreased HDL-C.Overweight and obese children were 1.88times more likely to have a high totalcholesterol level (P = 0.020), 6.34 timesmore likely to have high triglyceride levels(P , 0.000), 1.97 times more likely to havea high atherogenic index (P = 0.019), 1.40times more likely to have a waistcircumference above the 90th percentile(P = 0.022), and 1.88 times more likely tohave a low HDL-C (P = 0.043) incomparison with children who were notoverweight or obese. 13. Discussion This study evaluated the relationship of lipid profileand waist circumference as cardiovascular risk factorswith overweight and obesity in Qatari children. The main findings of our study were that overweightand obese children screened by IOTF criteria hadconsistently more adverse cardiovascular risk factors, Increased waist circumference, Hypercholesterolemia Hypertriglyceridemia and atherogenic index, with lower levels of HDL-C thanchildren who were not overweight or obese. 14. Discussion Several studies have shown that the associationbetween obesity and cardiovascular risk begins early inlife. Body mass index and waist circumference eachmeasure a distinct component of obesity or body fatdistribution, and waist circumference is consistently thebest predictor of cardiovascular risk. 15. Discussion Few studies are available on the relationship betweenwaist circumference and cardiovascular risk factors inchildren. The results of the current study showed significant positive correlations between waist circumference and total cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL-C, and an inverse correlation with HDL-C after adjustment for age and gender. The findings of the current study are in agreementwith previous studies. demonstrating a significantassociation between increased waist circumferenceand lipid profile. 16. Conclusion Overweight and obese Qatari children screened by IOTFcriteria have increased cardiovascular risk factors relatedto triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-HDL, atherogenicindex, and waist circumference. This finding has significant public health implications inQatar, given the associations between obesity, waistcircumference, metabolic abnormalities of the lipidprofile, and cardiovascular risk in adult life. This suggests that control of excessive weight gain in childrenis likely to have long-term benefits.