1Assistant Professor, Ashok & Rita Patel Institute of Physiotherapy, Charusat, Anand, Gujarat, India
2Professor & Dr. TMA Pai Endowment Chair in Exercise Science and Health Promotion, Department of Physiotherapy, School of Allied Health Sciences, Manipal University, Manipal, Karnataka, India
Online published on 18 July, 2017.
Obesity has reached epidemic proportion globally. Outcome measures have been designed to measure childhood obesity, having positive and negative aspects of usage. Objectives: 1. To assess overall childhood obesity prevalence. 2. To compare obesity prevalence between urban and rural children. 3. To compare gender-wise obesity prevalence. Methodology: Cross-sectional evaluation of anthropometric parameters was done of 1034 school-children from 5 to 18 years of Anand district. Obesity evaluated using BMI (IOTF), Waist circumference (WC), Waist-to-Height ratio (WHtR). Result: Overall prevalence was 19.9%. Compared to rural population 14.2% prevalence, urban population had 23.8%. Prevalence in boys was 20.8% and in girls was 19.9%. WC was more sensitive and specific than WHtR, as compared against BMI. Conclusion: Present study documents prevalence of obesity as 20%. Urban children and boys are at higher obesity spectrum. WC is more suitable as an outcome measure to diagnose obesity.
Childhood obesity, Waist Circumference, Waist-Height Ratio, BMI (IOTF), Prevalence
