OBJECTIVETo study the development of waist circumference (WC) and hip circumference (HC) in children and adolescents in Shandong province, and to provide scientific data for developing related reference values for screening central obesity in Chinese children and adolescents.

METHODSUsing data from 'Student physical fitness and health surveillance 2010 project' in Shandong province, a total of 42 275 students aged 7 - 18 years were selected to participate in this study. WC, HC, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and wrist-to-stature ratio (WSR) of subjects were measured. Comparison of data from the current study and other similar studies was made.

RESULTSThe mean values of WC increased with age, and boys all significantly higher than girls in all age categories (P < 0.01). There were two crosses on gender regarding the HC curves: before the age of 11 years, with mean HC higher in boys than in girls, but girls were higher than boys between the age of 12 to 14 while boys were also higher than girls after the age of 15 years. The 50(th) percentiles (P(50)) of WC of children and adolescents aged 7 to 18 years in Shandong appeared above the figures by 1.3 - 3.1 cm (boys) and 1.2 - 2.0 cm (girls) from 15 provinces in China as well as above the data from Hong Kong by 1.9 - 5.4 cm (boys) and 2.0 - 6.5 cm (girls), respectively. Overall, 20.20% of the boys and 16.57% of the girls had a WC of ≥ 90(th) percentile and 15.73% and 7.38% of the boys and girls had a WHtR of ≥ 0.5 which both showed significant differences between genders (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONChildren and adolescents from Shandong province had a high level of WC.