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Reference Curves of Waist Circumference in Children and Adolescents

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Handbook of Anthropometry

Abstract

The global increase of adiposity in youth necessitates early diagnosis and intervention. Among other anthropometric measures waist circumference assessment has become increasingly important as an easy, non-invasive and inexpensive routine tool since waist circumference is a measure of central adiposity. The waist circumference is essential for a correct definition of abdominal obesity and consequently for a common definition of the metabolic syndrome in childhood and adolescence in order to allow for considerable ethnic variations. Furthermore, central obesity and therefore the waist circumference are predictive for cardiovascular risk. To compensate for gender- and age-specific variations in development and ethnic origin of children and adolescents percentiles rather than absolute values are used for comparison with adults. This contribution paper has taken over the task of collating equivalent world-wide data as far as they have been published until now (October 2009, PubMed). However, the authors apologize in advance for having possibly missed some important publications.

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Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

CT:

Computed tomography

DXA:

Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry

F:

Female

LMS:

Smooth (L) curve, trends observed for the mean (M), an coefficient of variation (S)

M:

Male

MRI:

Magnetic resonance imaging

PEP:

Prevention Education Program

WC:

Waist circumference

WHO:

World Health Organization

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arteriosklerose Praeventions Institut, Munich, Germany

    Peter Schwandt

Authors
  1. Peter Schwandt
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  2. Gerda-Maria Haas
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter Schwandt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Nutrition & Dietetics, King's College, Stamford St. 150, London, SE1 9NH, United Kingdom

    Victor R. Preedy

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Schwandt, P., Haas, GM. (2012). Reference Curves of Waist Circumference in Children and Adolescents. In: Preedy, V. (eds) Handbook of Anthropometry. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1788-1_85

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1788-1_85

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