title: Body fatness and serum lipids of 11-year-old Chinese children.
abstract: It has been suggested that distribution of body fat has a stronger bearing on health risk than total body fat. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to examine the distribution of fat and correlated with body fat assessed by the usual clinical methods-weight, weight-for-height, body mass index (BMI), triceps and subscapular skinfold thickness in 11-y-old Chinese children. Lipid profiles were used as indicators for coronary risk. Eighty-eight subjects had body fat distribution estimated by MRI, while 49 had serum lipids measured. Anthropometric parameters correlated significantly with total fat at the umbilical level measured by MRI (weight: r = 0.90 in boys, 0.75 in girls; BMI: r = 0.94 in boys, 0.87 in girls; percent median weight-for-height: r = 0.90 in boys, 0.79 in girls, triceps skinfold thickness: r = 0.89 in boys, 0.90 in girls; subscapular skinfold thickness: r = 0.93 in boys, 0.88 in girls). Obese subjects had proportionally less visceral fat than subcutaneous fat at umbilical level. Using stepwise multiple regression, predictive factors for high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were BMI in boys and breast-staging in girls. For triglycerides, it was genital staging in boys and for total cholesterol, it was breast-staging in girls. Visceral fat was not a significant determinant of serum lipids.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics, Prince of Wales Hospital, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin.
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.forename: Y L
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: C W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Lam
authors.forename: X H
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: K S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Metreweli
mesh_terms: D000273:Adipose Tissue; D000886:Anthropometry; D044466:Asian People; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D002648:Child; D002681:China; D017097:Electric Impedance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008055:Lipids / Q000097:blood*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012044:Regression Analysis
chemical_list: D008055:Lipids