CHILDHOOD UNDER PRESSURE: INDIA'S NEW HIGH-BP GENERATION

High blood pressure in children used to sound like a rare curiosity.

- TDG NETWORK

Representative image.

New data say otherwise.A major review in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health has found that childhood hypertension worldwide has nearly doubled in two decades: boys went from about 3.4% to 6.5%, girls from 3% to 5.8% between 2000 and 2020. Overall, roughly 4-6% of children and teens now live with high BP, with risk peaking around age 14.

India is not an outlier. Pediatricians running urban school screenings in Delhi and other cities now routinely report 5-10% of students with elevated readings, especially among those who are overweight or obese. Recent Indian studies from Hisar, Bagalkot and the Northeast have found hypertension in 6-20% of school-age children depending on age and cutoffs, with another 10-12% in the “pre-hypertensive” range.