When children become overweight, blood pressure May Spike

When children become overweight, blood pressure May Spike
Children are considered overweight if their body mass index (BMI)-a simple ratio of height to weight is 85 or higher percentile for their age. That imaginary line may seem arbitrary to some, but the child's risk of having high blood pressure nearly triples if he or she crosses it, a new study has found.

Fourteen percent of children with overweight and obesity in the study had high blood pressure (hypertension) or pre-condition of mild hypertension, compared with only 5% of normal weight children. What's more, rates of hypertension and prehypertension appeared to be relatively flat, as BMI increased, to rebound in the 85th percentile and climbing from there.

"If you have a child [which] is already overweight and a small increase in BMI percentile, the risk of hypertension increases really dramatic," says lead study author, Wanzhu Tu, PhD, professor of biostatistics at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. "At the same time, if you were able to reduce BMI percentile even a little, you can actually see much benefit in blood pressure."
When children become overweight, blood pressure May Spike