ABSTRACT

The objective of this study is to assess prevalance of obesity and overweight among students between the ages of 7 and 18 in İzmir, Turkey.

The study was conducted in 24 schools with 2009 students that are chosen using a population based stratified cluster sampling method. Employing WHO’s reference tables, students having percentiles of body mass index (BMI) between 85 and 95 are considered as overweight and those over 95 are considered as obese.

Prevalance of obesity and overweight are found as 8.4%, 12.1% for girls, and 13.1%, 15.1% for boys, respectively. Height, weight and BMI of boys at any age is significantly greater than girls at that age. Further, prevalance of obesity and overweight are significantly higher in boys than girls. Prevalance of obesity or overweight rise up to age of 11 and then decrease in girls, while the decreasing rates begin to increase after age of 15 in boys. Rate of obesity is significantly higher at ages of 9-13 in girls and 9-11 in boys than other age groups.

In contrast to the literature, a wider age group and a variety of schools were recruited in this study to assess accurate obesity rates based on the heterogeneous nature of society in the metropolitan city, İzmir. Overall prevalance of obesity of 10.8% obtained in this study is higher than other studies conducted in Turkey. The results indicate that prevalances have been dramatically increasing and becoming a riskier problem for school children in Turkey.

Keywords: Obesity, overweight, prevalence, BMI, childhood