Prevalence of overweight and obese children between 1989 and 1998: population based series of cross sectional studies.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVE:To determine trends in weight, height, and body mass index in children between 1989 and 1998. DESIGN:Retrospective series of cross sectional studies of routinely collected data. SETTING:Primary care in the Wirral Health Authority. PARTICIPANTS:35 662 infants aged 1-3 months (representing 88% of live births) and 28 768 children aged 2.9-4.0 years. 21 582 infants and children (25.1%) were excluded because of missing or inaccurate data. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Weight, height, sex, and age routinely recorded by health visitors. Height, weight, and body mass index standardised for age and sex. SD score >1.04 for body mass index (>85th centile) was defined as overweight and >1.64 (>95th centile) as obese. Body mass index was not calculated in infants as it is difficult to interpret. RESULTS:From 1989 to 1998 there was a highly significant increasing trend in the proportion of overweight children (14.7% to 23.6%; P<0.001) and obese children (5.4% to 9.2%; P<0.001). There was also a highly significant increasing trend in the mean SD score for weight (0.05 to 0.29; P<0.001) and body mass index (-0.15 to 0.31; P<0.001) but not height. Infants showed a small but significantly increasing trend in mean SD score for weight (-0.17 to -0.05; P=0.005). CONCLUSIONS:From 1989 to 1998 there was a highly significant increase in weight and body mass index in children under 4 years of age. Routinely collected data are valuable in identifying anthropometric trends in populations.
SUBMITTER: Bundred P
PROVIDER: S-EPMC26573 | biostudies-literature | 2001 Feb
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
ACCESS DATA