이고은, 추진아

고려대학교 간호대학

Background: Abdominal obesity as measured by waist-to-
height ratio (WHtR) may have stronger and inverse
associations with cardiovascular (CV) health than overall
obesity as measured by body mass index (BMI).
However, there was some challenges for controversies. We
aimed to examine the associations of WHtR and
BMI with CV health among Korean children using data of the
2010-2012 Korea National Health and Nutrition
Examination Survey.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with the
sample of 2,363 children by analyzing by gender and
two-age groups (10-12 and 13-18 years). Overall obesity
was categorized into 3 groups by BMI percentile:
non-overweight (<85), overweight (≥85), and obesity groups
(≥95). Abdominal obesity was categorized into
2 groups by WHtR: normal (<0.5) and abdominal obesity
groups (≥0.5). The CV health score was defined as
a z-score by calculating the sum of 7 CV factors.
Results: The overweight/obesity groups had significantly
lower CV health scores than the normal group
(P<0.05) in boys and girls aged either 10-12 years or 13-18
years after adjusting for covariates. The abdominal
obesity group also showed significantly lower CV health
scores than the normal group (P<0.05) in all the
groups; this significant association remained significant in
boys aged 13-18 years even after further adjusting
for BMI category (P<0.01).
Conclusions: Among boys aged 13-18 years, abdominal
obesity as measured by WHtR was significantly and
inversely associated with CV health, independent of BMI
category. Therefore, it should be considered to assess
the level of abdominal obesity as a measure of CV health in
late adolescent boys.
Korean J Health Promot 2017;17(2):109-118
Keywords: Obesity, Obesity, abdominal, Cardiovascular
disease, Risk factors, Adolescents