مجله طب جنوب
سال پانزدهم شماره 3 (پاییز 1391)

Normal bone structure is formed in childhood and adolescence. Any problem of bone formation at these stages will lead to significant osteoporosis and its complications in adulthood. Genetic factors are the most important factors in skeletal development. This study aimed to evaluate the bone mineral density and it's interfering factors in Iranian girls of Kawar of Fars.

In this cross sectional study 235 healthy girls of Kawar of Fars aged 9-18 years old participated and they underwent Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) scanning of lumbar spine, femoral neck and total body. The LMS method was applied to calculate smoothed BMC, BMD and BMAD for age related centiles.

Maximum accretion of BMC and BMD was at ages of 11 to 13 and according to 3rd, 25th, 50th, 75th and 97th percentile, BMC and BMD of all sites were increasing with a rather fixed rate up to the age of 15 and then after it increased very slowly.

This study is the first study for normative data of BMC and BMD of Iranian girls and showed that BMC accretion of these girls was slower, but BMD accretion was greater than the girls of the other parts of the world. Absolute amount of bone mineral content in Iranian girls was lower than Indian, Lebanese and Asian girls of USA. Also weight and puberty were the two most important factors efficacious on BMD of the Iranian girls (of Kawar). Further research to evaluate the evolution of bone mineral density in Iranian children and adolescents is needed to identify the reasons for the significant differences in bone density values between our Iranian population and their Asian counterparts.

The prevalence of obesity in recent decades gets more and is considered as common nutritional health problem in developing and developed countries. Obesity is known as risk factor for a lot of chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, CVA, cardiovascular diseases and cancers. Childhood and adolescent obesity is important indicator and determinant of adulthood obesity. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of obesity and overweight in high school girls in Bushehr city.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 500 high school girls (14-17 years old) by using layer sampling method. Data collection included interview with the girls about demographic, social, economic, medical history, physical activity and anthropometric measurements (weight, height) for BMI calculation based on CDC Standard BMI. Percentile under 5 percent considered as underweight, BMI percentile between the 85-95 considered as overweight and percentile above 95 was considered obese.

The prevalence of obesity, overweight and underweight in this study were 7.1, 14.5 and 2.9 percent respectively. Obesity and overweight were significantly correlated with educationTjobs of parents and physical activity of girls. In the obese girls 58.3 had activity rate less than 30 minutes daily, 25 percent of samples had TV watching more than 4 hours, 50 percent consumed snacks twice per day and 38.9 percent reported obesity in first-degree relatives respectively.

The findings of this study showed that the prevalence of obesity and overweight in high school girls were less than similar global studies but more than domestically research studies. Giving information to high school girls and their families, especially mothers about risk factors of obesity, to improve physical activity and nutritional behaviors is recommended.