2.Prevalence of Overweight / Obesity among School Children In Karnataka, South India
International Journal of Public Health Research 2011;-(Special issue):180-184
Worldwide, non-communicable diseases (NCD)
represent 43% of the burden of disease and are
expected to be responsible for 60% of the disease
burden and 73% of all deaths by 2020.Obesity in
children and adolescents is gradually becoming a
major public health problem in many developing
countries, including India. The present study was
undertaken to identify the prevalence of childhood
overweight /obesity and to find the relationship
between BMI and waist circumference of the
children. Eleven schools were selected randomly
from Udupi district of Karnataka state, India. A
school based survey was carried out among 2938
school children in the age group of 10 – 16 years.
On the day of survey, the purpose of the study was
explained. The demographic proforma was
administered and standard procedures were
followed to assess the anthropometric
measurements.
Result showed that 7% of children were
overweight and 5% were obese. The Pearson
Correlation computed between BMI and waist
circumference showed a positive ( r = 0.763, p
=<0.0001) relationship between BMI and waist
circumference. The study concluded that childhood
obesity prevalence is increasing among children.
Higher BMI was found among children in the age
of 10 – 12 years and among girls than the boys. The
gender difference in BMI could be due to sedentary
lifestyles of girls. As the BMI of children increases
the waist circumference also increases.
Obesity
;
Prevalence
;
Child
;
India