A comparison study on the prevalence of obesity and its associated factors among school Children

Abstract

Background: Childhood obesity has become a serious public health problem in many low-and-middle income countries. This study aims to determine the prevalence and assess the factors associated with obesity among school children.Material and Methods:Study Design: This was a school-based, cross-sectional, questionnaire based study carried out over a period of three months, from July 2019 to February 2020. We adopted a multistage stratified random sampling procedure. Six schools were selected by a simple random technique.Selection of subjects: (inclusion and exclusion of students) The subjects were children, 6 to 15 years of age. Children with history of chronic diseases like Tuberculosis, asthma, diabetes were not included.Anthropometric measurements: Trained investigators weighed all of children without shoes and heavy clothing, using an electronic weighing scale with an error of ±100 g. Result:The average Body Mass Index (BMI) for boys was 17.9 and that of girls was 18.32.In male category, 67 (38%) were underweight, 71 (40.3%) were healthy weight and 38 (21.5%) were Overweight + Obese. In female category, 36 (29 %) were underweight, 57 (45.9%) were healthy weight and 31 (25%) were Overweight + Obese.It has been found that, more no. of subjects and more than 2 hours watching T.V are from overweight+obese group whereas less than 1 hours watching T.V belonged to underweight and healthy weight were less numbers. It has been found that, more no. of subjects doing physical exercise are from healthy weight group whereas less no. of subjects doing physical exercise belonged to underweight and overweight + obese. Thus physical exercise helps in maintaining healthy weight and prevents obesity and underweight.Conclusion:We found a high prevalence of overweight and obese children in our study. Since obesity in adulthood has its onset in childhood, it is important to have effective implementation of school health activities to reduce and curb the burden of childhood obesity.