• Public health

To the editor: With great interest, we read the articles of a recent issue of Heart addressing the important role of abdominal obesity in relation to cardiovascular risk and the metabolic syndrome.1 2 The metabolic syndrome, considered the ailment of the 20th century, emerges from clustering and interactions of multiple cardiovascular risk factors affecting a large proportion of the population. The presence of the metabolic syndrome in children is of particular interest given the rapid and alarming increase in prevalence in the past …