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Most US children do not meet AHA definition of ideal childhood CV health
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Most children are born with ideal CV health, according to a new scientific statement by the American Heart Association, but many children in the United States do not meet the AHA’s definition of ideal childhood CV health.
This means more proactive strategies are need for promoting good heart health, the statement authors wrote.
“Instead of taking a wait-and-see approach by treating disease later in adulthood, we should help children maintain the standards of ideal [CV] health that most children are born with,” Julia Steinberger, MD, MS, chair of the advisory committee, professor in pediatrics and director of pediatric cardiology at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, said in a press release.
The CV health measures were based on seven ideal health behaviors, which included:
- ·not using tobacco products;
- maintaining healthy BMI;
- getting at least 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity;
- eating a healthy diet; and
- maintaining healthy cholesterol, BP and blood glucose levels.
“A primary reason for so few children having ideal [CV] health is poor nutrition — children are eating high-calorie, low-nutrition foods and not eating enough healthy foods, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish and other foods strongly associated with good heart health and a healthy body weight,” Steinberger said in the release.
Utilizing data from the 2007-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Steinberger and colleagues found that nearly 91% of children had low diet measure scores and 9% had an intermediate diet score, with children aged 2 to 19 years getting most of their daily calories from simple carbohydrates, including sugary desserts and beverages. In addition, only half the boys and a little more than one-third of the girls aged 6 to 11 years were maintaining the recommended levels of physical activity. These numbers decreased even further as children reached adolescence.
Besides poor diet and lack of activity, obesity was found to be another factor in children’s poor CV health. About 10% of children aged 2 to 5 years in the study were obese based on BMI, and in the 12- to 19-year-old age range, the percentage of obesity increased to between 19% and 27%. The only CV health measure that almost all the children met was ideal BP.
Steinberger and colleagues wrote that certain health behaviors like diet and exercise were hard to determine in children because of lack of age-appropriate standardized tools.
“As pediatricians, we see a tremendous opportunity to strive toward true CV health if we think of the factors that maintain health early in life. It’s much harder to turn back the clock,” Steinberger said. – by Tracey Romero
Disclosure: Steinberger reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full statement for a list of the relevant financial disclosures of the other authors and reviewers.
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