Abstract
Introduction: Obesity is becoming more and more frequent in children, which can result in health problems both in childhood and in adulthood. Considering that, at school age, eating habits may be influenced by the context in which the child is inserted, mainly, lifestyle, inside and outside the school environment, it is important to evaluate the growth achieved in height, as well as their nutritional status, since this can be an indication of future and possible nutritional disorders, allowing to direct resources and effective public policies in this age group.
 Objective: Evaluate the growth in stature and nutritional condition of schoolchildren by gender and age in Florianopolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil, in the first semester of the 2012 school year. 
 Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 595 children of six to ten years of age, through the marketing of Public Municipal Elementary Schools, in the city of Florianópolis, State of Santa Catarina, Brazil. The statistical analysis of the data was performed with the Statistical Package for the Social Science, version 20.0. 
 Results: It was assessed a larger proportion of children between seven and nine years of age, and both in relation to the stature as the Body Mass Index (BMI). The medians are higher when compared to the reference (World Health Organization), revealing that the children are growing well, even above the average for the benchmark. However, at the same time, they have a BMI higher than expected, even considering their high stature. The diagnosis of nutritional status among the boys and girls showed no statistical differences. However, it is worth highlighting that, although the bigger prevalence is eutrophic children (70.3%), a high prevalence of excess weight (overweight, obesity and severe obesity) can also be observed, around 28% of the sample.
 Conclusions: Although most children were found to be in normal nutritional condition, some were identified as being overweight or obese. It was evident that nutritional condition does not differ in relation to gender, but is influenced by age and height.
Highlights
Obesity is becoming more and more frequent in children, which can result in health problems both in childhood and in adulthood
A cross-cutting study was conducted with children from 6 to 10 years of age who attend to Public Municipal Elementary Schools, in the city of Florianópolis, State of Santa Catarina, Brazil
For the calculation of the sample, an alpha of 0.05 and a power test of 0.80 was considered, with the minimal effect to be detected defined as a difference of 1/4 of standard deviation between the z scores of body mass index of children of both genders, on the assumption that the average zBMI among schoolchildren, without discrimination by gender, is around 0.6 and that its standard deviation corresponds to a value of around 1.110
Summary
Obesity is becoming more and more frequent in children, which can result in health problems both in childhood and in adulthood. Obesity has become increasingly common in children, which may result in damages to health both in childhood and in adulthood[1]. The influence of the regular eating habits of parents, relatives, and friends can lead to changes in behavior, which are directly involved in nutritional condition[2,3]. In the past two decades, national surveys demonstrate that there was an increase in the prevalence of cases of overweight children, from 4.9% to 17.4% among children in this age group[4]. According to data from the Surveillance System of Food and Nutrition (SISVAN), cases of being overweight or obese correspond to a prevalence of 13.1%, and the risk of being overweight is 16.9%, while severe thinness and thinness are equivalent to approximately 4.5%5,6
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