Obesity high among girls

Chennai: Being fat or obese may draw compliments like “chubby” or “cute” but in reality this may not be a sign of good health. With more children savouring junk foods and being sedentary, there appears to be high prevalence of overweight and obesity among school children in Chennai, and some were even hypertensive. The prevalence of overweight / obesity was significantly higher in private schools (21.4 per cent) compared to government schools students (3.6 per cent).

Overweight / obesity is higher among girls (18 per cent) compared to boys (16.2 per cent) and higher among adolescents (18.1 per cent) compared to children (15.5 per cent). Prevalence of hypertension was 20.4 per cent among obese / overweight and 5.2per cent among non-obese. These findings were based on screening a total of 18,955 children and adolescents (1,799 children and 2,904 adolescents from 20 government schools, and 6,226 children and 8,026 adolescents from 31 private schools).

The study on prevalence of overweight and obesity among school children and adolescents in Chennai was conducted by Jagadesan S. Harish R, Miranda P, Unnikrishnan R, Anjana R.M. Mohan V, from Madras Diabetes Research Foundation and Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Specialties Centre, Chennai. They used national and international age-and sex-specific body mass index (BMI) cut-off points.

The obesity reduction and awareness and screening of non- communicable diseases through group education in children and adolescents (ORANGE) project was a cross-sectional study carried out on 18,955 children (age 6-11 years) and adolescents (age 12-17 years) across 51 schools (31 private and 20 government) in Chennai. Overweight and obesity were classified by international obesity task force (IOTF 2000) and Khadilkars criteria (2012), and hypertension by IDF criteria (in children 10 years and above and adolescents). Informed written consent was obtained from one of the parents of the child’s and additional assent was obtained from the child before conducting the study.