Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 May-Jun;23(3):289-292.
doi: 10.4103/ijem.IJEM_649_18.

Rural Childhood Obesity - An Emerging Health Concern

Sarala Premkumar  1 , Padmasani Venkat Ramanan  2 , J Dhivya Lakshmi  3
Affiliations

Rural Childhood Obesity - An Emerging Health Concern

Sarala Premkumar et al. Indian J Endocrinol Metab. 2019 May-Jun.

Abstract

Background: Childhood obesity is growing globally as an epidemic. It is the most common metabolic disease identified in children.

Objective: To assess the nutritional status of school going children in Poonamallee, Tamil Nadu and to compare the nutritional status between urban and rural school children.

Methods: A retrospective review of the school health records over a period of 9 months was done with Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) approval for a total of 1,803 children aged 5 to 18 years (916- rural, 887-urban). Revised IAP growth charts (2015) were used to classify their nutrition status.

Results: The overall prevalence of overweight/obesity and thinness/severe thinness in our study was 20% and 9.4%, respectively. In the rural schools, the prevalence of overweight/obesity and thinness was 16.2% and 12.2%, respectively, whereas in the urban schools, it was 24% and 6.4%, respectively. The rural school children had lower mean Z scores of weight for age, height for age, and BMI for age compared to urban children (P < 0.001).

Conclusion: Among rural school children overweight/obesity is more prevalent than undernutrition. There is an urgent need for nutrition education for the school children and community.

Keywords: Obesity; rural; school children; urban.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

References

    1. Wang Y, Lobstein T. Worldwide trends in childhood overweight and obesity. Int J PediatrObes. 2006;1:11–25. - PubMed
    1. Wang Y. Cross-national comparison of childhood obesity: The epidemic and the relationship between obesity and socio-economic status. Int J Epidemiol. 2001;30:1129–36. - PubMed
    1. Shabana T, Vijay V. Impact of socio-economic status on prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in urban India. Open Obes J. 2009;1:9–14.
    1. de Onis M, Biossner M, Borghi E. Global prevalence and trends of overweight and obesity among preschool children. Am J ClinNutr. 2010;92:1257–64. - PubMed
    1. Midha T, Nath B, Kumari R, Rao YK, Pandey U. Childhood obesity in India: A meta-analysis. Indian J Pediatr. 2012;79:945–8. - PubMed