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19/11/2024 - Press release

Abdominal obesity causes more than 1 million children in Spain to be at cardiometabolic risk.

A scientific article by the PASOS consortium, led by the Gasol Foundation and the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, confirms that nearly 60% of children with overweight present abdominal obesity.

• 56.1% of the population aged 8 to 16 with overweight (based on BMI) has an excess of fat around the waist, a percentage that 20 years ago stood at 40%.
• Abdominal obesity is associated with visceral fat, a condition defining cardiometabolic risk, which already affects more than 1 million children aged 8 to 16 in Spain.
• The PASOS study by the Gasol Foundation continues to contribute to scientific evidence and understanding the issue of childhood obesity.

More and more children are at cardiometabolic risk-a set of metabolic and cardiovascular abnormalities that predispose individuals to cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. This is highlighted by the latest scientific article led by the Gasol Foundation-a foundation by brothers Pau and Marc Gasol whose mission is to prevent childhood obesity-and the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, based on data from the 2019/2020 PASOS study coordinated by the Gasol Foundation and the 1998/2000 EnKid study coordinated by Dr. Lluis Serra-Majem, Professor at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Abdominal obesity, defined as an excessive accumulation of fat in the abdominal area, is strongly associated with type 2 diabetes, hypertension, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia. These factors make it a clear marker of cardiometabolic risk. According to this study, abdominal obesity in children aged 8 to 16 with overweight has increased from 40.7% to 56.1% over the last two decades. This means that in 2019-2020, the likelihood of children with overweight according to BMI having abdominal obesity was 99% higher than in 1998-2000.

According to Dr. Helmut Schröder, researcher at the Cardiovascular Risk and Nutrition Group, coordinator of Group 30 of the CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health, and the article's lead author, "The fact that 1 million children currently face cardiometabolic risk underscores the great importance of including waist circumference measurement in routine pediatric primary care visits. Beyond Body Mass Index (BMI), routinely determined in pediatric primary care to estimate whether the child and adolescent population is underweight, at a healthy weight, overweight, or obese, the waist circumference ratio helps determine if excessive body fat is accumulating around the abdomen."

"These findings are devastating and highlight the urgent need to accelerate the implementation of initiatives promoting healthy habits at all life stages, especially during early childhood, to prevent and comprehensively address childhood obesity," stated Dr. Santi F. Gómez, Global Research and Programs Director at the Gasol Foundation and the principal investigator of the PASOS study. "The entire society should urgently get involved to curb this social and health emergency that increasingly affects more children and has progressively severe consequences, such as cardiometabolic risk."

The scientific article, titled "Twenty-year trend of cardiometabolic risk measured by abdominal obesity across body mass index categories in Spanish children and adolescents", has been published in BMC Medicine (link here). This study is based on data from the PASOS study by the Gasol Foundation, supported by the FC Barcelona Foundation and Fundación Occidente as main collaborators, as well as IFA, Banco Santander, and Fundación CSAI as health allies.

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