| Summary: | 博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 護理學研究所 === 102 === Backgrounds: The concurrence of children obesity and asthma has been noticed during the past two decades. Thus, there is an increasing number of studies focusing on the relationship between these two health issues and the scientists continue on exploring the underlying mechanism connecting children asthma to obesity. Though the number of children suffering from obesity and/or asthma is also elevating in Taiwan, related studies focusing on Taiwanese children are lacking. There is a need to construct more localized studies to explore the relationship between childhood asthma and obesity in Taiwan’s pediatric population, also those important factors contributing to both health burden.
Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between childhood asthma and obesity and to identy the important and risk factor that may have impact on the both health issues.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional research. The research sample recruited from Pediatric Immunology clinic in National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei. Questionnaires were adopted to collect children’s demographic variables and physical activities levels; and also Food Frequency Questionnare to explore the dietary pattern of recruited children. A weight/height scale was utilized to calculate children’s BMI and the the pulmonary function test was performed by using the spirometry. All those data were analyzed through statistics method such as descriptive analysis, Kruskal-Wallis test, linear or/and logistic regression to verify the relationships between research variables.
Results: 97 children with asthma were recruited. 67 (69.1%) of them were boys while 30 (30.9%) of them were girls. The data collecting period was between Dec. in 2009 till Sep. in 2011. There is a positive association between children’s asthma control level and their obesity status (OR: 1.19, 95% CI: 1.02~1.41). Several factors may both contribute to a worsen asthma control level and obesity including low SES status and a dietary pattern of a frequent intake of oily and hight-sugar food. Doctor’s education was significantly related to decrease the risk of a worsen asthma control and obesity. Finally, the sleep hours during the weekdays were somehow inversely associated with the risk of worse asthma control and obesity.
Conclusions: This study not only found some evidence of the positive relationship between childhood asthma and obesity, but also able to identify high-risk gourps by locating the risk demographic and behavioral factors contributing to both health burdens.
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