Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity in 4 Schools of South Mumbai

The paediatric obesity is on the rise so as the complications of obesity like cardiovascular diseases, liver diseases, dyslipidaemia are increasing. The changing dietary habits and less of outdoor activities are risk factors for obesity. The study was conducted to find out prevalence of overweight and obesity among students in four schools of the Mumbai and compare with studies from rest of the country. It is school based, cross-sectional study conducted in four Schools from class of 5(th) to 10(th). The anthropometric measurements of height, weight were taken of each student. The body mass index was calculated based on the age based Cole et al., criteria (International) as well as Khadilkar et al., criteria which are specially develop for Indian children. The data was analysed with chi-square test. Total 1828 students were screened from 4 schools. Out of which 590 were girls and 1238 were boys. The prevalence of overweight and obesity by Cole et al., criteria were 11.3% and 3.3% and by Khadilkar et al., criteria were 17.5% and 7.8 % respectively. It shows significant difference in obesity between boys and girls and also between government and private schools. There is overall decrease in prevalence of overweight and obesity as age increases. The overweight and obesity among these schools in Mumbai is comparable with the rest of the studies from India.