ESPE Abstracts

Background: Obesity is an increasing problem among children and adolescents in recent decades however official statistics are contradictory.

Objective and hypotheses: The purpose of this epidemiological study was to determine the prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents in the Udmurt Republic – the region in European part of the Russian Federation with a child population of 300 thousand people.

Method: According to the experiment 5732 children 1–17 years (boys – 2 845, girls – 2 887), among them the inhabitants of the cities–1 090, rural inhabitants–4 642, were examined. Diagnostic criteria of obesity in children is recommended by the World Health Organization were used.

Results: The prevalence of overweight was 16.7±0.7%, the prevalence of obesity was 7.1±0.3%. Gender features were characterized by a significantly higher (P<0.001) frequency of obesity in boys (9.0±0.5%) compared with girls (5.2±0.4%), with no differences in the frequency of overweight (17.4±0.7% and 16.1±0.7% respectively). In accordance with the age, two peak prevalence of obesity were registered: children 1–3 years (12.2±1.7%) and 7–12 years (8.6±0.6%). There were not any significant differences in the frequency of obesity among urban and rural residents (7.4±0.4% and 5.9±0.7%, P>0.05). In the structure of obese patients 57.0% had BMI in the range of 2 to 2.5 S.D., 27.5% had BMI in the range of 2.6–3.0 S.D., 13.0% had BMI in the range of 3.1–3.9 S.D. and 2.5% had BMI in the range of ≧4.0 S.D.

Conclusion: The results motivate paediatricians to devote more time to the problem of obesity.