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. 2024 Mar 28;21(4):408.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph21040408.

Investigation of Underlying Association between Anthropometric and Cardiorespiratory Fitness Markers among Overweight and Obese Adolescents in Canada

Mario Leone  1   2 , Hung Tien Bui  1   2 , Emilia Kalinova  3 , Jean Lemoyne  4 , Dominic Gagnon  5 , Luc Léger  6 , Georges Larivière  6 , Maxime Allisse  1   7
Affiliations

Investigation of Underlying Association between Anthropometric and Cardiorespiratory Fitness Markers among Overweight and Obese Adolescents in Canada

Mario Leone et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Adolescents who experience overweight or obesity commonly persist in these conditions into adulthood, thereby elevating their vulnerability to health issues. The focus of this study is on health risk markers such as body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), body surface area (BSA), and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF). The objectives include updating normative values for BMI, WC, WHtR, and BSA in Canadian adolescents, establishing cardiometabolic risk zones, and developing a composite score considering both anthropometric and CRF markers.

Methods: Involving 1864 adolescents, the study used the LMS method to generate percentile norms, stratified by age and sex. Cardiometabolic risk zones were established for each marker based on Z-scores, and a composite score was created.

Results: An increase in WC of 5.8 and 7.4 cm for boys and girls, respectively, was observed since 1981. Forward multiple regression analyses were conducted to assess the robustness and validity of the proposed model. The results indicated that the model explained nearly 90% (R2 = 0.890) of the common variance between the composite score and the retained independent variables. Moreover, the model demonstrated a mean absolute error (MAE) of approximately 6 percentiles, confirming its high precision. Furthermore, these analyses yielded key thresholds for identifying adolescents at risk: the 70th percentile for high cardiometabolic risk and the 85th percentile for very-high risk.

Conclusions: Individually, WC or WHtR seem to be better markers for evaluating cardiometabolic risk than BMI during adolescence. However, CRF showed comparable importance to anthropometric markers in determining cardiometabolic risk. The simultaneous inclusion of anthropometric and CRF markers provides a better picture of the global cardiometabolic risk in adolescents.

Keywords: VO2peak; body composition; cardiometabolic risk; maximal functional aerobic power; youth.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Age-specific smoothed percentile curves for BMI and BSA for boys (A,C) and girls, respectively (B,D).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Age-specific smoothed percentile curves for WC and WHtR for boys (A,C) and girls, respectively (B,D).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Secular trend for waist circumference (WC) between the current study (Blue) and adjusted data from the 1981 Canadian Fitness Survey (CFS; Red)). Boys (A) and girls (B).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Age-dependent determination of health risk zones for body mass index and waist circumference in boys (A,C) and girls (B,D).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Age-dependent determination of health risk zones for waist-to-height ratio and body surface area in boys (A,C) and girls (B,D).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Age-dependent determination of health risk zones for VO2peak and the number of stages completed in the 20 m shuttle run test in boys (A,C) and girls (B,D).
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