Clinical characteristics of obese boys and girls in a high school: focused on abdominal fat indices, fatty liver and carotid intima-media thickness.
OBJECTIVE
Our study aimed to evaluated sex differences in clinical features of obese high school students.


METHODS
One hundred three obese high school students (body mass index [BMI]≥85th percentile) and 51 control students (BMI<85th percentile) were enrolled in this study. Anthropometric measurements were performed. Fasting serum glucose, insulin, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, total cholesterol, triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and high-sensitive C-reactive protein were measured. Abdominal fat thickness, degree of fatty liver, and carotid intima-media thickness were measured by ultrasound.


RESULTS
In control and obese groups, waist circumference was significantly longer in boys but body fat mass was significantly higher in girls. In the control group, total cholesterol and LDL-C were higher in girls. In the obese group, however, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase and triglyceride were higher and HDL-C was lower in boys. Preperitoneal fat thickness was significantly higher in obese girls. In obese group, the degree of fatty liver was significantly higher in boys. Carotid intima-media thickness was not significantly different between boys and girls.


CONCLUSIONS
Obese adolescents had distinguishable sex differences in body measurements, metabolic abnormalities, abdominal fat thickness and fatty liver. We can infer that these characteristics may extend into adult obesity.
Department of Pediatrics, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Jung Eun
JE
Oh
Jiyoung
J
Jung
Hae Soon
HS
Kim
Young Mi
YM
Hong
Jung Hyun
JH
Yoo
Young Whan
YW
Song
Jo Won
JW
Jung
Nam Su
NS
Kim
Chung Il
CI
Noh