Modernisation and children's blood pressure: On and off the tourist trail in Nepal

Blood pressure and anthropometric measurements were taken for 231 children between 11 and 14 years in the Annapurna area of Central Nepal, a popular t ourist destination. Children from villages on the tourist trail, whose life styles were generally more modernised, were compared with children from nea rby villages off the tourist trail. Indications of greater modernisation on the trail included the findings that fathers of children living on the tra il were less likely to work as farmers than fathers of those off the trail (P = 0.003), and children living on the trail were much more likely to have seen television (P < 0.001). Children on the tourist trail were taller and heavier (P < 0.001), and had higher body mass indices (P = 0.003) and bice ps skinfolds (P = 0.005). They also had higher diastolic blood pressure tha n children living off the trail (P = 0.02). The differences in weight appea red to account for the effect of living on the trail on diastolic blood pre ssure, since when weight was added to the model it showed a significant ass ociation with diastolic blood pressure (P = 0.02) and the effect of locatio n became nonsignificant. For the biceps skinfold and systolic blood pressur e, there was a significant sex difference in the effect of living on the tr ail (P = 0.04 and P = 0.05 respectively), such that; among girls there were greater increases associated with living on the trail than there were amon g boys. The findings suggest that lifestyle changes linked to the developme nt of tourism in Nepal are associated from an early age with potentially de leterious changes in cardiovascular characteristics and demonstrate that su ch socioeconomic changes can have quite local effects. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.