Waist circumference percentiles for 6- to 11-year-old children in Elazig city, eastern Turkey

Waist circumference percentiles for 6- to 11-year-old children in Elazýg city, Eastern Turkey
EDIBE PIRINÇCI¹, YASEMIN AÇIK², BIRSEN DURMUÞ^3
1Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Firat, 23 119, Elazig, Turkey, and , ²Department of Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Firat, 23 119, Elazig, Turkey, ³College of Health Services, University of Firat, 23 119, Elazig, Turkey, 

Waist circumference, not BMI, is one of the factors in the definition of metabolic syndrome in adults. In children, waist circumference is also a well known predictor of metabolic syndrom.   To develop age- and sex-specific reference values for waist circumference we evaluated the data obtained from Turkish children. Waist circumference measurements from 3642 (1860 males and, 1782 females) healthy schoolchildren were obtained. Smoothed percentile curves were produced by the LMS method. The median curves of Turkish children were compared with other countries. Smoothed percentile curves and values for the 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th, and 95th percentiles were calculated for boys and girls. Waist circumference increases with age in both boys and girls, and boys have higher values of vaist circumference than girls at every age and percentile level. This study presents data and smoothed percentile curves for waist circumference of healthy Turkish children aged 6–11 years. This estimation could be an alternative way and useful in detecting childhood metabolic syndrome or obesity disease in which a waist circumference figure is necessary.
 Keywords  Children . Obesity . Percentiles .Waist circumference