Over the course of the past 2 years, the Children’s Memorial Health Institute in the Polish capital of Warszawa examined the physical health of 17,500 Polish children and adolescents. Statistics from the participating children and youth, aged 6 to 18, will provide Polish medical personnel with a reference range that will make it easier to determine a proper diagnosis and undertake effective preventive and treatments of childhood obesity. The increased number of overweight children and youths has increased the importance of such growth charts.
Earlier detection of high blood pressure
After measuring the children’s height, weight, blood pressure and pulse rate, the results of the children characterised as healthy have been used to develop a reference range for arterial blood pressure in the form of graphs showing average measurements of height, weight and, in addition, body mass index (BMI) compared with age and sex.
“Blood pressure reference ranges enable early detection of increased blood pressure during childhood and adolescence. This is crucial to undertake interventions to normalise blood pressure in order to prevent future risk of cardiovascular disease”, said project manager Dr. Zbigniew Kulaga.
Enabled international comparison
Growth is an important indicator of health, and growth references can also be used as a public health tool to summarise and compare the growth among groups of children.
The Children’s Memorial Health Institute has also aimed at determining the rate of overweight and obesity among Polish children and adolescents. The results have been used to assess how well Polish children and youths match with or diverge from regional and international growth references. These comparisons resulted in some interesting findings:
- Polish children aged 14 years and younger are equally tall or taller than their German peers. Polish children are also taller than their American peers.
- Polish youth aged 14 to 18 are shorter than German adolescents.
- Polish girls over the age of 9 have a lower BMI than their US counterparts.
- Polish boys under the age of 13 have a higher BMI than German boys. The opposite is true for boys over the age of 14.
Health workshop
The project has also involved the organisation of a 3-day long workshop for some of the participating children from more rural areas. “We educated children on healthy eating, healthy food preferences, and the importance of physical activity. During the stay at our Institute, we encouraged children to undertake physical activity at our new playground,” Dr. Kulaga said.
Photo: Children being taught about the importance of a healthy lifestyle. The picture is taken by the Children's Memorial Health Institute.