Introduction: Childhood obesity is currently a major health problem in many countries of the world. Overweight affects both the children's health and their social integration and these children tend to become obese adults. Aim of the work: to determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity among primary school children in Kafr saqr district-Sharqia Governorate, Egypt and identify some socio-demographic, dietary and behavioral factors that govern the problem of obesity. Subjects and Methods: This is a cross sectional study carried out at public primary governmental schools during the academic year 2012-2013. Cluster sampling technique was used. Students aged 6-12 years old with a total number of 500 students of both sexes was included in the study. Data were collected from the parents of all children through a structured questionnaire including sociodemographic data, life style habits and dietary habits. Results: The prevalence of over weight and obesity is relatively high (58.6%) distributed as 34.2% overweight and (24.4%) obese. Obesity is more prevalent among (8 < 10 years) age group, female, urban resident students. More than half of the obese children belong to university educated fathers (54.9%) and mothers (58.2%). 75.4% of obese and over weight children belong to professional employee and clerical fathers. Skipping breakfast, regular intake of carbohydrates, dairy, fat and sweat meals were positively significantly associated with obesity mean while high rate of active play (7 times or more per weak), low rate of screen time (2 hours or less per day), spending holiday out door and regular intake of fruits and vegetables were negatively significantly associated with obesity. Conclusion and recommendations: This study provides further evidence of the increasingly high burden of over weight and obesity among primary school children living in Egypt. Different strategies can be implanted through many approaches to outline some important targets for anticipatory guidance to prevent obesity. |
