title: Obesity, fitness and health in Taiwanese children and adolescents.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine the prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity in Taiwan and investigate the association between excess weight and physical fitness and blood pressure.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional study.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 13 935 children and adolescents aged 6-18 years (boys: 7031, girls: 6904) were involved in the 1999 survey and 24 586 (boys: 12 367, girls: 12 219) were available in the 2001 survey.
  
  
  METHODS
  Weight, height, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and health-related fitness tests (bent-leg curl-ups, sit-and-reach test and step test) were measured.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall prevalence of obesity (including overweight) in boys was 19.8% in 1999 and 26.8% in 2001. It was lower in girls with 15.2% in 1999 and 16.5% in 2001. The normal weight group performed better (P<0.05) than the overweight/obese group in all fitness tests except in the 2001 sit-and-reach test where there were no differences between the two groups. The risk of hypertension increased nearly two times for the overweight/obese-fit group and nearly three times for the overweight/obese-unfit group compared to the normal weight-fit group (adjusted odds ratio (AOR)=1.93, 95%CI=1.514-2.451 and AOR=2.93, 95%CI=2.493-3.454, respectively).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Overall, the findings demonstrated that there is an increasing trend in overweight/obesity prevalence for Taiwanese youth even in a 2-year period. The overweight/obese youngsters tend to have poorer muscular strength and cardiovascular endurance than the normal weight group. The overweight/obese and unfit group had a greater risk of hypertension than other groups. However, this risk was significantly lower if obese/overweight children had a higher than average level of cardiovascular fitness.
authors.affiliation: Department of Exercise and Health Sciences, Centre for Sport, Exercise and Health, University of Bristol, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TP, UK.
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: K R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Fox
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Haase
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001794:Blood Pressure; D002648:Child; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010809:Physical Fitness; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology