Dr. Liang Wang Publishes in BMC Public Health

Dr. Liang Wang, Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, has published an article in BMC Public Health as the co-first author. The article, “Fast food consumption and its associations with obesity and hypertension among children: results from the baseline data of the Childhood Obesity Study in China Mega-cities”, assessed how Western and Chinese fast food consumption as well as maternal factors effect childhood obesity.

Dr. Wang’s research team collected data for The Childhood Obesity Study in 2015 from Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Xi’an. This study analyzed data from 1626 students aged 7-16 and their parents. Results showed that, overall, 11.1% of the children were obese, 19.7% had central obesity (as defined by waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) ≥ 0.48), and 9.0% had hypertension. Over three months, 51.9% of children consumed Western fast food while 43.6% of children consumed Chinese fast food.

Analyses showed that children whose mother had elementary school level of education or below were more likely to consume western fast food. Authors also found that, when running two models adjusting for Western then Chinese fast food consumption, maternal body mass index was positively associated with child obesity, central obesity, and hypertension.

Results from this study may assist in the creation of regional and national health care policies and school-based programs to help fight obesity. More details can be found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29212483.

Other authors on the article include Yaling Zhao and Youfa Wang from Xi’an Jiaotong University Health Science Center, Hong Xue from Virginia Commonwealth University, and Huijun Wang, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

This study was funded in part by the National Institute of Health.

BMC Public Health is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on the epidemiology of disease and the understanding of all aspects of public health. The journal has a special focus on the social determinants of health, the environmental, behavioral, and occupational correlates of health and disease, and the impact of health policies, practices and interventions on the community.