Changes in central fatness and abdominal obesity in children and adolescents from Cracow, Poland 1983-2000

In the light of the world increase of overall and abdominal obesity, little is known about the trends in abdominal obesity and its prevalence in Poland, a country which at the end of 20th underwent a socio-economic transformation that conduced to obesogenic environments.

The study traced the trends and prevalence of abdominal obesity in two successive cohorts of children and adolescents from Cracow, Poland between 1983 and 2000.

The data examined in this study were from two series of cross-sectional studies; the first in 1983 included 3252 boys and 3288 girls, and the second in 2000 included 2409 boys and 2093 girls aged 4-20. Waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) were applied to assess the type of fat distribution.

Means of WC and WHtR were higher in juvenile but lower in childhood and late adolescence periods in boys and girls from the 2000 cohort as compared to the 1983 one. The prevalence of abdominal obesity in Cracow children examined in 1983 was 3.9% for boys and 2.4% for girls, and in 2000 was 6.4% and 3.1%, respectively (in boys: chi(2) = 16.03, p = 0.0001; in girls: chi(2) = 1.90, p = 0.1684).

The 1983-2000 trend towards increasing prevalence of abdominal obesity in children and adolescents from Cracow is not as intensive as in other European countries, e.g. Britain, but it requires further monitoring.