Prevalence of Obesity in Hamadan Primary-Schools’ Students in 1998

• Main Authors: Jafar Sohailifar, Gholamhosein Sadri
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: Hamadan University of Medical Sciences 2000-09-01
• Series: پزشکی بالینی ابن سینا
• Subjects: obesity- epidemiology /students
• Online Access: http://sjh.umsha.ac.ir/article-1-935-en.html

Obesity status is unknown among Hamadan primary-school students.    The   main  objective  of  this  study  is  to determine its’ prevalence in the    study population.          This  study  was  conducted  on   two   thousand   school  children   of    Hamadan  city, Iran. A  sample of  2000  children  aged 6 - 11  years  was    surveyed  (1000  boys  and 1000 girls ). The  weight  (kg)  was  taken  by a    standardized  weighting   scale   while   height   was   measured  using  a    Plastic-band. For   diagnosis of obesity,  NCHS (National Center for Health    Statistics) standard method  was  used. The children’s which were among    the 90 & 95 percentiles were assigned  as obese and those  who were up    the 95 percentile  were  considered as very obese.          The results   showed  that 3.5%   percent  of  children were obese and    2.55%   were  very  obese.  The   prevalence   of   obesity   was  higher   in    females compared to males(7.2% VS 4% ).The difference  was statistically    significant (P<0.01).          The   figures  were compared to those of the United States of America    and European countries. It can be  concluded that obesity is not a major    problem in the surveyed population , While , the percent of lean peoples    (10.2%) in these cases was  higher than the obese  peoples.