The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of overweight and obesity in Portuguese children age 7-9 years and to analyze trends in body mass index (BMI) from 1970-2002. Data were collected from October 2002 to June 2003 in a random sample of Portuguese children. Height and weight were measured and BMI (Kg/m(2)) was calculated. The International Obesity TaskForce (IOTF) cutoffs to define...

BACKGROUND The international increase in overweight and obesity among children and adolescents over the past three decades confirms that childhood obesity is a global 'epidemic'. The World Health Organization considers childhood obesity to be a major public health concern. Childhood obesity is associated with cardiovascular, endocrine, musculoskeletal and gastrointestinal complications, and may...

OBJECTIVE Human adipose tissue expresses and releases the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-6, potentially inducing low-grade systemic inflammation in persons with excess body fat. To limit potential confounding by inflammation-related diseases and subclinical cardiovascular disease, we tested the hypothesis that overweight is associated with low-grade systemic inflammation in children. DE...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether overweight or obesity between 0 and 6 y increases the probability of developing general/central obesity at 7 y. METHODS Weight, height, and waist circumference were assessed between 0 and 6 y in 628 Chilean children. Body mass index, incidence of overweight (IOW), incidence of obesity (IOB), and prevalence at birth and 0 to 6, 6 to 24, 24 to 48, and 48 to 72 mo ...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the relative risks of dyslipidemia, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and metabolic syndromes among overweight and obese Chinese children compared with their normal weight counterparts. METHODS Overweight and obesity were defined by age- and sex-specific BMI classification reference for Chinese children and adolescents. Pediatric metabolic syndrome (MetS) and each risk fa...

OBJECTIVE This paper explores the longitudinal effects of socioeconomic factors (i.e., parent education and family income level), foreign media, and attitude toward appearance on general and central adiposity among Chinese adolescents. METHOD A longitudinal analysis was performed using data from the China Seven Cities Study, a health promotion and smoking prevention study conducted in seven c...

abstract background and objective: obesity is an important risk factor for development of hypertension. we investigated the association between body mass index (bmi) and blood pressure in adolescents. methods: the cross-sectional study was performed on 694 adolescents aged 12-18 years from middle and high schools located in 4 districts of shiraz, iran. height, weight, and systolic and diastolic...

INTRODUCTION A balanced diet is at the heart of healthy growth and development of children and youth, whereas inappropriate eating habits considerably influence the incidence of disorders connected with nutrition, including overweight and obesity. This paper aims at studying nutritional factors of 18-year-old secondary school youth in the urban environment and their effect on the incidence of o...

BACKGROUND The stabilization in levels of childhood overweight has masked increasing gaps among different ethnic and socioeconomic groups in several countries. OBJECTIVE To examine if levels and trends in childhood overweight and obesity differed by ethnicity and socioeconomic areas in Copenhagen schoolchildren. METHODS From measured heights and weights of 32,951 children 5-8 and 14-16 year...