Journal
PEDIATRIC OBESITY
Volume 8, Issue 2, Pages 79-97Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.2047-6310.2012.00090.x
Keywords
Overweight; obesity; schoolchildren; COSI
Categories
Funding
- Flemish Agency for Care and Health and Ministry of Education
- Ministry of Health, National Centre of Public Health Protection and Regional Inspectorates for Protection and Control of Public Health
- WHO Regional Office for Europe and Producer Zepter
- Department of Health and Children
- Ministry of Health
- WHO Regional Office for Europe
- Lithuanian State Science and Studies Foundation
- Science Foundation of Kaunas University of Medicine
- Primary Health Care Department
- Norwegian Institute of Public Health
- Directorate of Health and Social Affairs
- Regional Health Directorates
- Ministry of Education and Sport
- Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research
- Swedish Research Council
- Directorate-General for Health of France
- General Health Directorate of Portugal
- National Institute of Health in Lisbon, Portugal
- National Institute of Health in Rome, Italy
- Karolinska Institute in Huddinge, Sweden
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Background Nutritional surveillance in school-age children, using measured weight and height, is not common in the European Region of the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO Regional Office for Europe has therefore initiated the WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative. Objective To present the anthropometric results of data collected in 2007/2008 and to investigate whether there exist differences across countries and between the sexes. Methods Weight and height were measured in 69-year-old children in 12 countries. Prevalence of overweight, obesity, stunting, thinness and underweight as well as mean Z-scores of anthropometric indices of height, weight and body mass index were calculated. Results A total of 168832 children were included in the analyses and a school participation rate of more than 95% was obtained in 8 out of 12 countries. Stunting, underweight and thinness were rarely prevalent. However, 19.349.0% of boys and 18.442.5% of girls were overweight (including obesity and based on the 2007 WHO growth reference).The prevalence of obesity ranged from 6.0 to 26.6% among boys and from 4.6 to 17.3% among girls. Multi-country comparisons suggest the presence of a northsouth gradient with the highest level of overweight found in southern European countries. Conclusions Overweight among 69-year-old children is a serious public health concern and its variation across the European Region highly depends on the country. Comparable monitoring of child growth is possible across Europe and should be emphasized in national policies and implemented as part of action plans.
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