Abstract—Aims: This study was planned to determine the relationship between neck circumference and obesity in children and adolescents. Method: The study sample consisted of 868 volunteer children and adolescents, 386 boys and 482 girls aged between 9-17 years. The data were collected by using face to face interviews by way of a questionnaire, then the measurements of body weight, height and neck circumference taken by dieticians. Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated and percentile classifications were made according to World Health Organization (WHO) reference values. The statistical analyses were performed with SPSS version 23.0 for Windows. Results: The average age of the children and adolescents participating in the study was 14.2±1.9 years. It was found that the 28.9% of students were overweight or obese (p=0.008). Girls were significantly more overweight or obese than boys (p=0.004). Correlations between neck circumference and BMI percentiles were found to be positively correlated in all age groups included in the study (r=0.627, p= 0.000). Conclusions: Neck circumference may be used for determining obesity in children and adolescents. It is also cost-effective and practical for large populations. More studies are needed in order to measure of neck circumference to be more effective we need to work more on a larger sample of the population.
 

Index Terms—Neck circumference, BMI, children, adolescents

Cite: Nurcan Yabanci Ayhan, Gökcen Iplikçi, M. Elif Öztürk, Nida Tokaç Er, and Hacı Ömer Yilmaz, "The Relationship between Neck Circumference and Obesity in Children and Adolescents," International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 144-147, June 2018. doi: 10.18178/ijfe.4.2.144-147