Measures of obesity associated with asthma diagnosis in ethnic minority children

Objective. The study objective was to examine relationships between different body size measurements and asthma in ethnic minority children. Methods. We used data from a community-based study of 505 children aged 6-to-8 years old to study the association of percent body fat, fat distribution, and BMI percentile with asthma diagnosis. Poisson regression models were used to compute prevalence ratios (PRs) for sex-specific quintiles of the body fat measures on the main outcome of asthma. Results. When comparing the highest quintile of each body fat measure to the combined lowest two quintiles, higher body mass index percentile, percent body fat, and waist circumference all were associated with a higher likelihood of physician-diagnosed asthma (PR = 1.63 (95% CI 1.12-2.39), 1.50 (95% CI 1.02-2.21), and 1.56 (95% CI 1.04-2.34), resp.). Conclusions. This study found a significant association between increased body size and asthma diagnosis, regardless of the measurement examined.