Trends in abdominal obesity among U.S. children and adolescents

Previous studies showed that prevalence of abdominal obesity among US children and adolescents increased significantly between 1988-1994 and 2003-2004. However, little is known about recent time trends in abdominal obesity since 2003-2004.This study was to provide recent updated national estimates of childhood abdominal obesity and examine the trends in childhood abdominal obesity from 2003 to 2012.

Data were from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted during 5 time periods (2003-2004, 2005-2006, 2007-2008, 2009-2010, and 2011-2012). A total of 16,601 US children and adolescents aged 2 to 18 years were included. Abdominal obesity is defined as a waist circumference (WC) ≥ gender- and age-specific 90th percentile based on data from NHANES III (1988-1994) and a waist-to-height (WHtR) ≥0.5, respectively.

In 2011-2012, 17.95% of children and adolescents aged 2 to 18 years were abdominally obese defined by WC, and 32.93% of those aged 6 to 18 years were abdominally obese defined by WHtR. Mean WC and WHtR and prevalence of abdominal obesity kept stable between 2003-2004 and 2011-2012, independently of gender, age, and race/ethnicity. However, there was a significant decrease in abdominal obesity among children aged 2 to 5 years.

The prevalence of abdominal obesity leveled off among US children and adolescents from 2003-2004 to 2011-2012.