Study on relationship of body mass index percentile distribution and blood pressure in children and adolescents in Shandong Province

Objective To analyze the relationship of body mass index(BMI) percentile distribution and blood pressure(BP)in children and adolescents,and to provide scientific basis for primary prevention of adult disease.Methods Data from the students' physical fitness and health surveillance in 2005 in Shandong province,the individual systolic blood pressure(SBP) and diastolic blood pressure(DBP) were transformed into Z score,and the association between BMI percentile distribution and BP level was analyzed by using standard deviation method.Results The Z score of SBP was increasing with BMI percentile in total interval,the mean values of SBP Z score increased from-0.50(boys) and-0.36(girls) in 5th BMI percentile group to 0.97(boys) and 1.05(girls) in ≥95th BMI percentile group,and the Z score of DBP was increasing with BMI percentile in ≥45th BMI percentile interval,the trend which BP level increasing with BMI percentile was obvious especially in high BMI percentile.The BP level of overweight and obese adolescents was significantly higher compared with the average of groups,the mean values of Z score for SBP and DBP were 0.31,0.22(boys) and 0.38,0.24(girls) in overweight group,and 0.85,0.57(boys) and 0.96,0.69(girls) in obesity group,respectively.Conclusion BMI distribution has obvious effects on BP level in children and adolescents.It is the key measure to control rapid growth of BMI in childhood for the prevention of hypertension in adults.