Association of Fitness and Fatness with Clustered Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors in Nigerian Adolescents

Danladi I. Musa, Abel L. Toriola, Daniel T. Goon and Sunday U. Jonathan
Additional contact information
Danladi I. Musa: Department of Human Kinetics and Health Education, Kogi State University, Anyigba 272102, Nigeria
Abel L. Toriola: Department of Sport, Rehabilitation and Dental Sciences, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria 0001, South Africa
Daniel T. Goon: Faculty of Health Sciences, University of forte Hare, East London 5201, South Africa
Sunday U. Jonathan: Department of Human Kinetics and Health Education, Ibrahim BadamasiBabangida University, Lapai 911101, Nigeria

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 16, 1-10

Abstract: Purpose : This study examinedthe independent and joint association of fitness and fatness with clustered cardiovascular disease risk (CVDrs) in 11–18 year-old Nigerian adolescents. Methods : A hundred and ninety seven adolescents (100 girls and 97 boys) were evaluated forfitness, fatness and CVDrs. Fitness was evaluated with the progressive aerobic cardiovascular endurance run test while fatness was assessed using body mass index. A clustered CVDrs was computed from the standardized residuals of total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, Low density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, plasma glucose, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure. Regression models controlling for waist circumference assessed the association of fitness and fatness with CVDrs. Results : Prevalence of clustered CVD risk was 7.1% (girls = 3.0%; boys = 4.1%). Based on risk factor abnormalities, 52.8% of participants had one or more CVD risk factor abnormalities with more boys (27.4%) affected. Low fitness was associated with clustered CVDrs in both girls (R 2 = 9.8%, β = −0.287, p = 0.05) and boys (R 2 = 17%, β = −0.406, p < 0.0005). Fatness was not associated with the CVDrs in both sexes. After controlling for all the variables in the model, only fitness (R 2 = 10.4%) and abdominal fat (R 2 = 19.5%) were associated with CVDrs respectively. Unfit girls were 3.2 (95% CI = 1.31–7.91, p = 0.011) times likely to develop CVD risk abnormality compared to their fit counterparts. The likelihood of unfit boys developing CVD risk abnormality was 3.9 (95% CI = 1.15–10.08, p = 0.005) times compared to their fit peers. Conclusions : Fitness but not fatness was a better predictor of CVDrs in Nigerian boys and girls. The result of this study suggests that any public health strategies aimed at preventing or reversing the increasing trends of CVD risk in adolescents should emphasize promotion of aerobic fitness.

Keywords: gender difference; cardiovascular disease; adolescents; fitness; health promotion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/16/5861/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/16/5861/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:16:p:5861-:d:398265

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().