[Relationship between blood pressure and weight characteristics in childhood and adolescence. I.--Blood pressure, weight and overweight (author's transl)].

This is a report on blood pressure measurements of 17,067 healthy children (8,647 boys and 8,420 girls) aged between 4 and 18 years old. Blood pressure increases regularly during growth and is more closely correlated with height and weight than with age. This association increases strongly during male puberty. Correlation with height disappears after puberty while correlation with weight remains and increases. In children whose overweight reaches or exceeds 20 per cent of weight relative to height, the risk of increasing blood pressure above 20 mm Hg over the mean values for the same height is multiplied by 2.5 in boys and 2 in girls. This assertion however concerning growing children does not show to what extent blood pressure increase is due to fatness and to what extent it is due to a high level of maturity and an early development of bone and muscular mass.