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The places where a child lives and attends to school are both major environmental and social determinants of its present and future health status. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and some of their risk factors among child and adolescent populations are obesity and dyslipidemia, so finding the patterns of distribution of these risk factors by gender, type of school, area, and margination level is important to do health intervention focusing in their necessities to prevent diseases at younger ages. Because of that, a cross-sectional study was performed among elementary and junior high school students from public and private schools in six of the seven areas of the metropolitan zone of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Biochemical dyslipidemia indicators (triglycerides, total cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein) and anthropometric data (weight and height) were obtained. Seventeen public schools and five private schools with a total of 383 students were included. More than half of the studied population (53.0%) had elevated triglyceride levels. A total of 330 students (86.2%) had normal levels of total cholesterol with a mean value of 141.7 mg/dl, and 202 schoolchildren (52.8%) had lower than acceptable levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) with a mean value of 43.9 mg/dl. There were differences in the levels of high-density protein between the areas and the type of school where they had been studied. Finally, a total of 150 students (39.4%) had at least one altered lipid value and 103 participants (26.9%) had two altered values. Several students, despite their young age, showed a high prevalence of risk factors, so it is important to design programs according to their necessities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective:To compare the value of body fat mass (%FM) to indirect measures of general (body mass index (BMI)) and central adiposity (waist circumference (WC); waist-to-height ratio (WC/ht)) for the prediction of overweight- and obesity-related metabolic risk in a study population with a high prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MSX).Methods:BMI, WC, WC/ht, body composition (by air-displacement plethysmography) and metabolic risk factors: triglycerides, cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C), uric acid, systolic blood pressure (BPsys), insulin resistance by homeostasis model assessment (HOMA-IR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) were measured in 335 adults (191 women, 144 men; mean age 53 ±13.9 years, prevalence of MSX 30%).Results:When compared with BMI and WC, %FM showed weaker associations with metabolic risk factors, except for CRP and BPsys in men. In women, HDL-C and HOMA-IR showed the closest correlations with BMI. For all other risk factors, WC or WC/ht were the best predictors in both sexes. Differences in the strength of correlations between an obesity index and different risk factors exceeded the differences observed between all obesity indices within one risk factor. In stepwise multiple regression analyses, WC/ht was the main predictor of metabolic risk in both sexes combined. However, analysis of the area under receiver operating characteristic curves for prediction of the prevalence of 2 component traits of the MSX revealed a similar accuracy of all obesity indices.Conclusions:At the population level, measurement of body FM has no advantage over BMI and WC in the prediction of obesity-related metabolic risk. Although measures of central adiposity (WC, WC/ht) tended to show closer associations with risk factors than measures of general adiposity, the differences were small and depended on the type of risk factor and sex, suggesting an equivalent value of methods.International Journal of Obesity (2006) 30, 475–483. doi:10.1038/sj.ijo.0803144; published online 1 November 2005 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]