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Revista Portuguesa de Medicina Geral e Familiar
Print version ISSN 2182-5173
Abstract
VENANCIO, Paulo; AGUILAR, Sara and PINTO, Graciete. Obesity in children in Portugal: a cross-sectional study. Rev Port Med Geral Fam [online]. 2012, vol.28, n.6, pp.410-416. ISSN 2182-5173.
Objectives: To determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity among elementary school students in Lumiar, Portugal, to assess the associations between body mass index (BMI), percentage of body fat (PMG), and age and gender, and to test the association between the BMI of parents and their children. Type of study: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Four elementary schools in Lumiar, Portugal. Population: Students enrolled in four elementary schools of Lumiar, in 2009-2010. Methods: We measured the weight, percentage of body fat (by the electrical bio-impedance method) and height of 623 students between August of 2009 and November of 2010. A stratified sample was drawn from the total population of 862 children to provide and estimate with a 95% confidence interval (CI), a 2% error margin and a 36% proportion. BMI was calculated using the formula weight/height2 (kg/m2). We used McCarthy’s body fat percentiles. Overweight was defines as a BMI or PMG percentile = 85th percentile. The SPSS 16 program for Windows® was used for statistical analysis. Results: In the study sample, 51.7% were female with a median age of 8 years [range 6-12 years]. The prevalence of overweigh was 28.4% for BMI and 30.3% for PMG. The findings were significantly lower than the findings in this population in 2005. Age was positively correlated with BMI and PMG. The prevalence of overweight was similar in both genders, using BMI and PMG percentiles. There was a strong positive correlation between BMI and PMG (correlation 0,893, p < 0,001). Conclusions: The prevalence over overweight and obesity was lower in this population than that reported in the literature. PMG identified more overweight and obese children than BMI. It may be a useful in the study of childhood obesity.
Keywords : Overweight; Obesity; Body Mass Index; Body Composition; Elementary School.
