B. S. Mannapur, S. G. Nyamagouda, A. S. Dorle, Jayaraj R. Mhetri, K. R. Kulkarn, Siera Thomas
BACKGROUND: Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk of global deaths. Once considered a high income country problem, overweight and obesity are now raising in low income and middle income countries especially in urban settings. OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of obesity in school children and to identify the factors influencing childhood obesity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study has been undertaken at one of the school of Vidyagiri, Bagalkot. The duration of study was during March to August 2014 for a period of two months. A total of 750 students from standard V to X, aged between 10-15 years had been enrolled in the study. It is a Cross-sectional descriptive study Obesity was assessed by BMI for age. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated as body weight in kilograms/height in meter square. The children were categorized into obese and non-obese by using K.N. Agarwal percentiles, children with 95th Percentile of BMI is taken as cut-off point. Children with BMI more than this cut-off point with respect to age and sex is considered as obese. The association of each of the variables with obesity was assessed with the Chi-square test. RESULTS: 22.53% of the children had family history of obesity. The total prevalence of obesity was 2.80%. The Prevalence of obesity among male was 2.01% and in female it was 0.79%. The association between obesity in children and family H/O obesity, Diabetes, frequency of outdoor games, number of high energy food intake and education of mother is found to be statistically significant.
