| Abstrakt: |
Background: Prevalence of childhood obesity has increased remarkably turns into a big problem in developed world, affecting significantly the physical and the emotional health of children. Objective: To estimate the overweight/obesity prevalence of children 10 to 15 years-old and to find out the determinants of this disease. Methodology: We conducted a cross-sectional study on 306 children 10 to 15 years-old in elementary and intermediate schools in Larissa, Greece. Selection of schools was performed in a random way with the use of a table of random numbers and response rate was 86.9% (306 out of 352). Data collection was performed during May 2015 and the children were classified as underweight, normal, overweight and obese according to body mass index, gender and age. The determinants under study were demographic characteristics, internet use, personal computer use, television watching, nutritional habits, physical activity, sleeping habits and attitudes towards diet issues. Data analysis was performed with IBM SPSS 21.0 Results: Seventy-seven point five percent of the children were classified as normal, 12.1% as overweight, 10.1% as underweight and 0.3% as obese. In particular, 19.6% of the boys and 4.6% of the girls were overweight, while 0.6% of the girls and 0% of the boys were obese. Mean body mass index of children was 18.1kg/m2 . Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified that boys, children with television in their room and children who used personal computer/video games machines/mobile/tablet were more overweight/obese. Conclusions: Appropriate health policies should be implemented in order to decrease obesity among children based on the determinants of this disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
