A study of correlates of overweight/obesity among high school children of mandya city, karnataka

Introduction: The rapid progress of urbanization and demographic trends is associated with a cluster of unhealthy lifestyles leading to overweight/obesity in children and adults. Rising prevalence of obesity in India may be attributed to various factors like sedentary life-style, unhealthy food habits, cultural practices and increasing affluence of middle class population. Obesity is a key factor for many chronic and non-communicable diseases. Complications of adult obesity are made worse if the obesity begins in childhood. Objectives: 1. To determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity in high school children of Mandya city. 2. To describe the factors contributing to overweight/obesity among the study subjects. Methodology: This is a cross sectional, questionnaire based study conducted on high school children of Mandya city. English and local language Kannada version questionnaire were used to study the variables. Anthropometric measurements of height, weight were taken using standard equipments. The statistical significance was evaluated at 95% confidence level (p < 0.05). Results and Conclusion: The overall prevalence of overweight/obesity was 9.63% and the prevalence of overweight/obesity was 4.50% and 5.13% respectively. Final model of the multivariate logistic regression showed that the important correlates of overweight/obesity were age, sex, type of school, family history of overweight/obesity, television viewing, sleep duration, absence of consumption of snacks