Prevalence Of Overweight And Obesity mong Guidance-And High School Students And Its Relation To ModifiableEnvironmental Factors

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of overweight and obesity among guidance-and high school students and its relation to modifiable environmental factors. The subjects have been 1000 girls and 1000 boys aged between 11-18 years, selected by multi-stage random sampling, their parents (2000 subjects) and their school staffs (500 subjects) in urban and rural areas of two provinces in Iran. Data have been analyzed by SPSSV10/ Win software. The prevalence of 85th < BMI<95th percentile and BMI>95th percentile in girls was significantly higher than boys (10.67±1.1%, 2.9±0.1% VS. 7.37±0.9%, 1.87±0.1% respectively, p<0.05). The mean BMI value was significantly different between urban and rural area (25.38±5.2 VS. 23.25±7.1, P< 0.05). BMI > 85th percentile was more prevalent in those with lower educated mothers (9.2+2.1 vs. 11.5+2.4 years of mothers education respectively). The mean of the total energy intake was not different between overweight or obese and normal- weight subjects (1825±90Kcal VS. 1815±85Kcal, P>0.05) but the percent of energy derived from carbohydrates was significantly higher in former than the latter (69.4% VS. 63.2%, P<0.05). Regular out-school sport activities were significantly lower and the time spent on television watching was significantly higher in overweight or obese than non-obese subjects (300±20 VS. 240±30 minutes/day, P<0.05). Significant linear association was shown between the consumption frequency of rice, bread, pasta, fast foods and fat/salty snack and BMI (p=0.05-0.06, p<0.05). A significant correlation was shown between BMI percentiles with serum triglyceride, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol and systolic blood pressure (Pearson r=0.38,-0.32 and 0.47 respectively).