Esfarjani S. V, Vala S. Determination of Prevalence of Obesity and Review of Some of Associated Factors in Ahvaz Primary School Students in 2009. Biomed Pharmacol J 2015;8(2)

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Shahla Vaziri Esfarjani^1* and Samin Vala²

¹Social Medicine Department, Medical School, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Science, Ahvaz, Iran. ²School of Medicine, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran.

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.13005/bpj/891

Abstract

Overweight and obesity is a major problem of public health and is considered, as the prevalence of obesity among children and adolescents increased in in recent years in the communities, complications of obesity among this group are emerging.Few studies have been conducted in Iran on obesity and the possible risk factors. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the prevalence of obesity among Iranian children as well as to identify the possible factors associated with obesity among the children. Total of 960 students of Ahvaz primary schools (aged 6-12 years) in 2009 were selected through a cluster sampling. Their height and weight and representative BMIs were calculated. The BMI was placed in the CDC 2000 BMI chart for age, individuals with a BMI equal or greater than 95 percentile were defined as obese and individuals with BMI between 85 to 95 percentiles as overweight. Then, the questionnaires were given to all students. Parents completed the questionnaires then, the questionnaires were collected. The probable factors that involved in prevalence of obesity, such as high birth weight, duration of breastfeeding, the habit of consuming junk foods, the hours of watching TV during a day and the numbers of fast food consumption during a week, were compared between obese and overweight and other children. Prevalence of obesity and overweight was 6% and 11.9%, respectively. There was no significant difference in prevalence of macrosomea at birth between obese and non obese children, while junk food consumption was significantly different. There were no significant differences for duration of breastfeeding between obese, overweight and healthy children. There were significant differences in fast food consumption during a week between those groups. The obese children consumed more fast food during a week than others. In addition, there were significant differences in TV watching hours per day between these three groups where overweight children spent more hours on TV watching. The prevalence of overweight and obesity in Ahvaz primary school students was relatively high. The features including eating snacks during a day, frequency of fast food consumption during a week, and watching TV hours during the day are different between obese children than overweight and healthy counterparts. However, the mother’s breastfeeding duration in infancy was not significantly different between these groups

Keywords

Obesity; Prevalence; Primary school pupils; Body Mass Index