Muhammad Asif, Muhammad Aslam, Tariq Ismail, Saima Altaf, Akasha Rahman.
Neck Circumference as Screening Measure for Identifying Children with Central Obesity, a study from Pakistan.
Pak Paed J Jan ;44(3):277-83.

Objective: Neck circumference (NC) is considered as an alternative screening method for obesity. The core objectives of this investigation were to evaluate the diagnostic ability of NC as an indicator of central obesity in Pakistani children and to determine the sex-specific best NC cut-off points that would identify centrally obese children. Study Design: Cross-sectional study Place and Duration of Study: Multan, Lahore and Rawalpindi and the capital city, Islamabad from March and June, 2016 Material and Methods: The present cross-sectional study included 5964 Pakistani children aged 5-12 years. Different anthropometric measurements i.e., height, weight, waist circumference (WC) and NC were assessed. The Pearson correlation co-efficient between NC and other anthropometric measurements were calculated. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis was used to determine the optimal NC cut-off points for identifying children with central obesity. Results: Among overall children, the mean (+- SD) age, BMI, WC and NC was 8.87 (+-2.36) years, 15.70 (+-2.48) Kg/m2, 56.89 (+-8.13) cm and 25.31 (+-2.21) cm, respectively. The NC had a stronger positive correlation (r=0.64) with WC. Optimal NC cut-off point indicative of central obesity in boys ranged from 25.27 to 30.10, while the corresponding values in girls ranged from 23.75 to 30.22. Conclusion: NC may have a simple and widely potential indicator in clinical settings that can identify central obesity with reasonable accuracy in children.

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