Avaliação da saúde cardiovascular de crianças atendidas no Programa Forças no Esporte (PROFESP) no Distrito Federal.

Abstract

Health assessment among Brazilian children suffers from data scarcity, while some health markers can signal the future development of diseases. This article sough to identify the presence of cardiovascular risk factors among children from the Federal District (DF). We analyzed clinical and anthropometric data, blood pressure (BP) and electrocardiogram (ECG) of children aged 6 to 15 years from public schools in the Federal District who participated in the Forces Program in Sport (PROFESP), an after-hours social project offered by the Superior School of Defense. Obesity was defined as body mass index percentile (pBMI) ≥ 95 and hypertension as BP percentile (pBP) > 95. Data are presented as mean ± standard deviation and number of participants (n) and percentage. A total of 244 children and adolescents, 124 boys and 120 girls with mean age of 9.6 (±2.1) years, participated in the study. All presented a normal ECG. Of the total, 11.4% were obese, 23.3% were overweight/
obese and 2.5% had hypertension, with lower frequencies compared to Brazilian population studies. The sports practice and balanced diet provided by PROFESP seem to positively influence weight and BP. The low rate of hypertension may also reflect this low frequency of childhood obesity. The participants therefore presented a relatively low frequency of cardiovascular risk factors. These
findings suggest that the regular sports practice and a healthy diet may explain, even if partially, the low prevalence of obesity and hypertension in this population group.