Relationship of body mass index and other life style factors with hypertension in adolescents.

Background: Over the past two decades, it has been observed that hypertension shows an increasing trend in children and adolescents. Various factors are contributing to this upward trend, and they primarily include changes in lifestyle and dietary habits.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of hypertension in school going adolescent children and to study the associated risk factors.

Materials And Methods: This prospective cross-sectional observational study was conducted over a period of one year on apparently healthy adolescents of randomly selected urban schools of Bhopal district of Madhya Pradesh, Central India. A pretested and prevalidated questionnaire was used to collect the details including present or past history of illness, family history of hypertension, socioeconomic status, and sleep pattern and birth weight of the children. This was followed by anthropometric and blood pressure (BP) measurements and thorough systemic examination.

Results: Out of 1221 children recruited in the study, 618 were boys, and 603 were girls. 22.7%, body mass index (BMI) of majority (85%) of the students was between 5(th) and 84(th) percentile, 5.65% were obese (BMI ≥95(th)) and 9.18% children were overweight (85(th)-95(th) percentile). Systolic and diastolic hypertension (BP >95(th) percentile) was seen in 61 (4.1%) and 48 (3.9%) participants, respectively. Both systolic and diastolic hypertension was seen in 30 (2.45%) participants. Systolic and diastolic prehypertension (BP 90(th) to <95(th) percentile) was seen in 88 (7.3%) and 68 (5.6%) participants, respectively. A highly significant association (P < 0.01) of sex, BMI, systolic BP, family history of hypertension, and birth weight with diastolic BP was seen.

Conclusion: There is a significant positive correlation of BMI with both systolic and diastolic BP. The family history of hypertension appears to be an important risk factor for the increase in both systolic and diastolic BP. Low birth weight and male sex seem to be risk factors for diastolic hypertension.