Introduction: Incidence of obesity in early childhood is increasing nowadays because of sedentary lifestyle, faulty food habits and lack of exercise. It has been observed that a variety of cardiovascular risk factors are closely linked to various biochemical variables in overweight and obese children. Objectives: Our study endeavoured to observe the correlation of various biochemical variables to cardiovascular risk factors in obese children. Materials and Methods: Ours was a case control study conducted on school children aged five to fifteen years presenting to Out Patient Department (OPD) of a 999 bedded large hospital in North India. These children were visiting the hospital for non-specific illnesses or for routine health checkup. Fifty consecutive obese and non-obese children were taken up for the study. Subjects with any chronic illnesses or on any chronic medications were excluded. Results: There was no significant difference in obesity with regard to age and gender between the study group and the control group (p=0.846 and p=0.567, respectively). There was significant statistical difference between the obese and control group children for both systolic as well as diastolic BP. In our study, Body mass index (BMI) was inversely associated with HDL cholesterol. Conclusion: Increased blood pressure, lipid and glucose abnormalities are associated with an increased cardiovascular risk in children. Hence, preventive measures to control obesity should be taken from childhood to save our future adults and prevent economic drain of the country.
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The Annals of Medical and Health Sciences Research is a bi-monthly multidisciplinary medical journal.