Fat Patterning in Italian and Spanish School-children

The prevalence of childhood obesity and its associated morbidities are increasing worldwide and evidence exists that childhood obesity increases risk of obesity in adulthood. Beside total body fat, numerous Authors have underlined, in children as in adults, the importance of fat distribution, especially abdominal obesity, as a risk factor for several metabolic diseases. As a consequence, the identification of children with elevated risk factor profiles is of great interest. The purpose of our study was twofold: 1) to detect weight status, percentage of body fat (Slaughter et al., 1988) and body fat distribution in two samples from different environment and 2) to evaluate the concordance of BMI (an indicator of overall adiposity) and waist circumference (an indicator of central fat distribution) as predictors of risk factor. The sample studied comprehends 460 Italian and 191 Spanish school-children aged 6-11. Height, weight, several skinfolds, waist and hip circumferences were measured. Overweight and obesity were defined on the basis of BMI’s cut-off limits proposed by Cole et al. (2000) while waist circumference levels at which risk factors become elevated were those proposed by Katzmarzyk et al. (2004). Overall, Italian and Spanish children do not differ significantly in BMI and %BF but in fat distribution, Spanish children generally showing greater hip circumference and thickness of calf and thigh skinfolds and Italian children greater waist girth. The percentage of overweight and obesity is slight higher in Spain than in Italy both in girls (20.93%vs18.30%; 5.81%vs4.91%) and boys (25.71%vs19.92; 8.57%vs7.63%). From a methodological point of view, there is not a precise concordance between the percentages of subjects classified as having an elevate risk factor profile evaluated using the two methods. In conclusion, our study indicate that the prediction of obesity-related health risk is improved by the joined use of the two methods.