BODY FATNESS AND SERUM-LIPIDS OF 11-YEAR-OLD CHINESE CHILDREN

It has been suggested that distribution of body fat has a stronger bea ring on health risk than total body fat. Magnetic resonance imaging (M RI) was used to examine the distribution of fat and correlated with bo dy fat assessed by the usual clinical methods-weight, weight-for-heigh t, body mass index (BMI), triceps and subscapular skinfold thickness i n 11-y-old Chinese children. Lipid profiles were used as indicators fo r coronary risk. Eighty-eight subjects had body fat distribution estim ated by MRI, while 49 had serum lipids measured. Anthropometric parame ters correlated significantly with total fat at the umbilical level me asured by MRI (weight: r = 0.90 in boys, 0.75 in girls; BMI: r = 0.94 in boys, 0.87 in girls; percent median weight-for-height. r = 0.90 in boys, 0.79 in girls, triceps skinfold thickness: r = 0.89 in boys, 0.9 0 in girls; subscapular skinfold thickness: r = 0.93 in boys, 0.88 in girls). Obese subjects had proportionally less visceral fat than subcu taneous fat at umbilical level. Using stepwise multiple regression, pr edictive factors for high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were BMI in boys and breast-staging in girls. For triglycerides, it was genital st aging in boys and for total cholesterol, it was breast-staging in girl s. Visceral fat was not a significant determinant of serum lipids.