Fitness, Food, and Biomarkers: Characterizing Body Composition in 19,634 Early Adolescents

Overview

Journal Nutrients

Date 2022 Apr 12

PMID 35405987

Authors

Alina Rodriguez

Katarzyna Korzeniowska

Kamila Szarejko

Hubert Borowski

Michal Brzezinski

Malgorzata Mysliwiec

Leszek Czupryniak

Per-Olof Berggren

Marcin Radziwill

Piotr Soszynski

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Adolescent obesity persists as a major concern, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, yet evidence gaps exist regarding the pivotal early adolescent years. Our objective was to provide a comprehensive picture using a holistic approach of measured anthropometry in early adolescence, including body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), and reported lifestyle characteristics. We aimed to elucidate potential sex/gender differences throughout and associations to biomarkers of disease risk for obese adolescents. Methods: Trained nurses measured 19,634 early adolescents (12−14-year-olds), we collected parental reports, and, for obese adolescents, fasting blood samples in four major Polish cities using a cross-sectional developmental design. Results: 24.7% boys and 18.6% girls were overweight/obese, and 2886 had BMI ≥ 90th percentile. With increasing age, there was greater risk of obesity among boys (p for trend = 0.001) and a decreasing risk of thinness for girls (p for trend = 0.01). Contrary to debate, we found BMI (continuous) was a useful indicator of measured fat mass (FM). There were 38.6% with CRF in the range of poor/very poor and was accounted for primarily by FM in boys, rather than BMI, and systolic blood pressure in girls. Boys, in comparison to girls, engaged more in sports (t = 127.26, p < 0.0001) and consumed more fast food (t = 188.57, p < 0.0001) and sugar-sweetened beverages (167.46, p < 0.0001). Uric acid, a potential marker for prediabetes, was strongly related to BMI in the obese subsample for both boys and girls. Obese girls showed signs of undernutrition. Conclusion: these findings show that overweight/obesity is by far a larger public health problem than thinness in early adolescence and is characterized differentially by sex/gender. Moreover, poor CRF in this age, which may contribute to life course obesity and disease, highlights the need for integrated and personalized intervention strategies taking sex/gender into account.

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