Sex differences in cardiovascular health among children aged 6-8 years in Beijing City
Objective To explore sex difference in the cardiovascular health(CVH)status of 6-8 year old children in Beijing,so as to inform the early intervention of CVH-related lifestyles.Methods Based on the Beijing Children's Growth and Health Co-hort(PROC),baseline physical examination,sequential questionnaire survey,and laboratory tests were conducted among 1 914 grade 1 students.Children's CVH and its subscales(health behaviors and health factors)scores were calculated according to the Life's Essential 8(LE 8)index and categorized into high,moderate,and low CVH.CVH scores were reported as medians and in-terquartile ranges;sex differences were compared using the Chi-square test and Wilcoxon test.Results Among the 1 914 partici-pants,the percentages of high,moderate,and low CVH were 35.7%,63.5%,and 0.8%,respectively,and the percentages of high,moderate,and low health behavior scores were 25.9%,67.5%,and 6.6%,respectively,with no statistically significant differences between sex(x2=2.30,0.07,P>0.05).The rates of high,moderate,and low health factor scores for boys and girls were 61.1%,36.0%,2.9%and 71.1%,28.4%,0.5%,respectively,with a statistically significant sex difference(x2=31.88,P<0.01).The overall CVH score was 76.0(70.0,83.0),76.0(69.0,82.0)for boys,and 77.0(71.0,83.0)for girls.Among the health behavior metrics,sleep scores were the best and physical activity scores were the worst[100.0(90.0,100.0),40.0(20.0,80.0)];among the health factor metrics,blood glucose scores were the best and lipid scores were the worst[100.0(100.0,100.0),60.0(40.0,100.0)].In respect to health factors,there were significant gender differences in body mass index,blood lipids,blood sugar,and blood pressure scores(Z=-6.92,3.01,-6.60,-2.30,P<0.05),but there were no significant gender differences in diet,physical activity,nicotine exposure,or sleep scores with regards to health behaviors(Z=0.99,0.88,-0.13,0.36,P>0.05).Compared to boys,girls in the low and moderate CVH groups had high health factor scores despite low health behavior scores.Conclusion Most 6-to 8-year-old children in Beijing were found to have relatively good CVH,and optimization of children's CVH status can be achieved by promoting healthier lifestyles and monitoring health factors,especially among boys.