[High arterial pressure in school children in Santos--relationship to obesity]

The escalating prevalence of obesity has led to an increase in the blood pressure of children and adolescents. This works aims to assess the relation between blood pressure and obesity in school children of Santos.

We performed a cross-sectional study in two phases. In a first screening we measured blood pressure and performed anthropometric evaluation of 7.440 children (9.0 +/- 1.1 years, 3891 or 52% of girls). Then a sample, including 1.713 children (9.7 +/- 1.1 years, 826 or 48% of girls), among those who presented with blood pressure equal to or above the 90 percentile in the screening phase was selected and visited again for new blood pressure and anthropometric measurements. In both phases of the study we considered as high blood pressure those values equal to or higher than the 95 percentile for the gender and stature of each individual.

In the screening phase 1.123/7.440 (15%) of children presented high blood pressure; obese children presented an increased frequency of high blood pressure (OR = 3.7 95% CI=3.2 4.3). In the second phase 43/1.713 (2.7%) presented high blood pressure; obese children again presented an increased frequency of high blood pressure (OR = 1.5 95% CI=1.2 1.8). Moreover we observed a progressive rise of systolic blood pressure parallel to the BMI at all intervals of BMI and not only in obese children.

Our work reinforces data in literature suggesting increased risk of high blood pressure among obese children. Increase in blood pressure may be cumulative with BMI rise, not only in obese children.