Association between Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Risk in Chinese Youth Independent of Age and Pubertal Stage

Table 2 Characteristics of clinical parameters and cardiovascular risk score of the study cohort stratified by level of physical activity (low to moderate versus high).

	Level of physical activity^#
Characteristics	Low to Moderate (n = 1477)	High (n = 405)	p-value
Sex^ψ
Male	530 (35.9%)	250 (61.7%)	<0.001
Female	947 (64.1%)	155 (38.3%)
Age (years)	13.5 (3.4)	13.7 (2.9)	0.313
Age and sex adjusted values (in z-score):
waist circumference	0.03 (1.02)	-0.04 (0.93)	0.208
systolic blood pressure(also height-adjusted)	0.00 (1.00)	-0.02 (0.99)	0.667
TC/HDL-C ratio	0.03 (1.00)	-0.10 (0.98)	0.030
triglyceride	0.02 (1.00)	-0.07 (0.96)	0.087
fasting plasma glucose	0.00 (1.00)	0.02 (1.01)	0.654
Cardiovascular Score *	0.07 (2.82)	-0.22 (2.77)	0.068
Obesity status^ψ
Normal	1180 (79.9%)	336 (83.0%)	0.009
Overweight	188 (12.7%)	46 (11.4%)
Obese	109 (7.4%)	23 (5.7%)
Puberty (tanner stage)^ψ
1	287 (20.1%)	54 (13.8%)	0.002
2 - 3	508 (35.6%)	173 (44.2%)
4 - 5	631 (44.2%)	164 (41.9%)

Data marked with ^ψ were presented as frequencies (%), all others were presented as means (standard deviations).
^# The cutoff threshold was identified using the approach of Walter et al [24]
Overweight and obesity were defined respectively by body mass index > 85^th and 95^th percentiles (age and sex specific based on a local population survey [23]).
* Cardiovascular Score = Sum of components' z score: components of cardiovascular risk score include z-score of sex-specific, age-adjusted waist circumference, systolic blood pressure (also height-adjusted), fasting plasma glucose, triglyceride and total cholesterol (TC)/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) ratio.

ISSN: 1471-2458