Increasing trends in waist circumference and waist-height ratio among US children and adolescents

Abdominal obesity is increasingly thought as better predictor than overall obesity for the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Simple surrogate estimates of abdominal obesity include waist circumference and waist-height ratio. Representative samples from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were examined between 1988-1994 and 1999-2004 to estimate the mean waist circumference and waist-height ratio of boys and girls in 4 different age groups (2-5 years, 6-11 years, 12-17 years and 18-19 years). During the observation period, the unadjusted mean waist circumference for the different age groups greatly increased from 50.7, 61.9, 76.8, and 81.3 cm to 51.9, 64.5, 79.8 and 86.6 cm for boys and from 51.0, 61.7, 75.0, and 77.7 cm to 51.8, 64.7, 78.9, and 83.9 cm for girls, respectively, with similar changes in waist-height ratio for boys and girls at each age group.

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