Combined Impact of Negative Lifestyle Factors on Cardiovascular Risk in Children : A Randomized Prospective Study

Abstract

Purpose<br /><br />Negative lifestyle factors are known to be associated with increased cardiovascular risk (CVR) in children, but research on their combined impact on a general population of children is sparse. Therefore, we aimed to quantify the combined impact of easily assessable negative lifestyle factors on the CVR scores of randomly selected children after 4 years.<br /><br />Methods<br /><br />Of the 540 randomly selected 6- to 13-year-old children, 502 children participated in a baseline health assessment, and 64% were assessed again after 4 years. Measures included anthropometry, fasting blood samples, and a health assessment questionnaire. Participants scored one point for each negative lifestyle factor at baseline: overweight; physical inactivity; high media consumption; little outdoor time; skipping breakfast; and having a parent who has ever smoked, is inactive, or overweight. A CVR score at follow-up was constructed by averaging sex- and age-related z-scores of waist circumference, blood pressure, glucose, inverted high-density lipoprotein, and triglycerides.<br /><br />Results<br /><br />The age-, sex-, pubertal stage-, and social class–adjusted probabilities (95% confidence interval) for being in the highest CVR score tertile at follow-up for children who had at most one (n = 48), two (n = 64), three (n = 56), four (n = 41), or five or more (n = 14) risky lifestyle factors were 15.4% (8.9–25.3), 24.3% (17.4–32.8), 36.0% (28.6–44.2), 49.8% (38.6–61.0), and 63.5% (47.2–77.2), respectively.<br /><br />Conclusions<br /><br />Even in childhood, an accumulation of negative lifestyle factors is associated with higher CVR scores after 4 years. These negative lifestyle factors are easy to assess in clinical practice and allow early detection and prevention of CVR in childhood.