Overweight and Obesity Among Children and Adolescents in Al-Muqdadiyah City

Abstract

Background: The obesity of the children, teens, or adults is one of the most serious risks to the health in the twenty first century. It appears widely during the last three decades and this growing distribution of the children obesity has a relationship with the occurrence of the diseases in earlier ages because the obesity has negative effects nearly on the whole body organs and usually causes serious diseases.

Objective: To know the distribution of this epidemic among our children and to have a real picture about the children of the primary schools in Al-Muqdadiyah region.

Patients and Methods: A cross-section study, involved the pupils of the fifth and the sixth stages, the information and the measurements were taken from 633 children (373 males, 260 females) their ages were between 123-144 months, in one month duration (December of 2016), during this period the visits were to 10 primary schools for both genders (four of them in the center of the region and six in the surrounding villages those belong to the region), included the age, weight, height, counting the body mass index, waist circumference, waist to height ratio, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure in addition to the questionnaire form and the information of the school card.

Results: The percentages of the overweight and the obesity for the males reached 13.6% , 4.07% for the fifth and the sixth stages respectively while for the females they were 10.31% , 6.06% for the fifth and the sixth stages respectively. The percentages of the overweight and the central obesity of the waist circumference for the males were 4.2% , 0.81% for the fifth and the sixth stages respectively while for the females they were 5% , 2.32% for the fifth and the sixth stages respectively. There was an increasing in the percentages of the systolic blood pressure for the males and the females in the fifth and the sixth stages with a decreasing in the percentages of the normal blood pressure for the both genders as they reached for the males to 36.4% , 34.15% in the fifth and the sixth stages respectively, for females 36.98% , 22.73% in the fifth and the sixth stages respectively while the percentages of the normal diastolic blood pressure were 56% , 54.47% for the males in the fifth and the sixth stages, for the females were 49.48% , 42.42% in the fifth and the sixth stages respectively.

Conclusion: The rate of the elevated systolic and diastolic blood pressure are high among the children that warns the occurrence of the health casualties in the future.