Cardiovascular Risk

Already at the age of ten, there is a relationship between fitness, obesity and the accumulation of risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Research shows that the children who had the worst fitness had more risk factors for heart attacks, such as increased blood pressure and more abdominal fat.

Physical inactivity, obesity and low maximal oxygen uptake capacity (fitness) are all established, strong risk factors in adults for developing cardiovascular disease and for suffering an early death. How these factors are linked to each other and also to other known risk factors for cardiovascular disease has not been well mapped in children.

The majority of separate facts indicate that it is also important to study how different factors for ill health are related to each other already early in life. It is known that the arteriosclerotic process starts already in children. Less than 50 percent of overweight twelve year old become normal weight as adults. What ill health this will cause in the future is not yet known.

Few studies on the accumulation of risk factors in children

It is not unreasonable to think that exposure to various risk factors over a long period of time, starting in childhood, would be more dangerous than exposure to it alone as an adult. However, there are very few studies in which various risk factors for cardiovascular disease have been investigated broadly and well in childhood. Previous studies in children have primarily investigated the relationship a single risk factor has with, for example, physical activity, obesity or fitness. Studying the accumulation of risk factors is considerably less common. It is reasonable to study precisely the accumulation of risk factors because this is not unusual in adults. For example, it is not uncommon to find both physical inactivity, obesity, poor fitness and high blood pressure in the same individual.

Ten percent of the accumulation of risk factors depends on the level of activity

The children we examined were on average 10 years old at the first examination, they have since been followed up with new examinations after 2 and 4 years. Our analyzes so far have been based on the first survey. The first analyzes were studies of only simple relationships between physical activity and obesity and fitness, and we found that those who were most active also had the best fitness and the least amount of fat (1-3).

Now we have expanded the analysis and compared the children’s physical activity level, both how many minutes they walked and ran and their average activity level, compared to the accumulation of risk factors for cardiovascular disease. About 10% of the accumulation of risk factors for cardiovascular disease could be explained by the children’s activity level (4). It may seem a little low, but then you have to remember that these are healthy 10-year-old children.