title: Measurement of neck circumference and its correlation with body composition in a sample of students in São Paulo, Brazil.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to verify the correlation between neck circumference (NC) and body mass index (BMI) in children, and to determine NC percentiles for Brazilian children.
  
  
  METHODS
  The subjects of this cross-sectional study were students between the ages of 6 and 19 years from five schools in São Paulo, Brazil. Clinical and anthropometric data were collected from the students from April 2011 to June 2012. NC was measured at the level of the cricoid cartilage. We calculated Pearson correlation coefficients between NC and other indices of obesity with Sigma Stat 3.5. NC percentiles were produced using the LMS (lambda, mu, and sigma) method (STATA 12.0).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among 2,794 students, 49.9% were male. NC was significantly correlated with age, BMI, waist circumference (WC), and body fat percentage (%BF). The NC of boys was greater than that of girls. The NC curves of smoothed 3rd, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th, and 97th percentiles were constructed by age and sex.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  NC can be used in the assessment of obesity in childhood. There was a positive correlation between NC and BMI, WC and %BF. This study was the first to provide NC percentiles for children in Brazil.
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Endocrinology Unit, Irmandade da Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo, Santa Casa de São Paulo Faculty of Medical Sciences, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Claudia Andrade
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Coutinho
authors.forename: Carlos Alberto
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Longui
authors.forename: Osmar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Monte
authors.forename: Wolney
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Conde
authors.forename: Cristiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kochi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000886:Anthropometry; D001823:Body Composition / Q000502:physiology*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001938:Brazil; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009333:Neck / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D050177:Overweight / Q000473:pathology; D063766:Pediatric Obesity / Q000473:pathology; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D055815:Young Adult