Abstract
The juvenile obesity is correlated to dietary and physical activity. Moreover, the rural or urban context could affect other aspects like time available to practice sport or the availability of sport facilities. Thus, this brief report investigated the relationship between origin and food habits in children belonging to different BMI categories. Over than 1400 primary school students were interviewed with their parents about their food habits. All answers were stratified according to origin (rural/urban) and to BMI categories as defined in literature. The percentage of normal weight, overweight and obese children between rural and urban context were similar (p > 0.05). All the BMI categories were familiar to have breakfast and no differences were found between rural or urban context (p > 0.52). Over 70% of children had the principal meal in at least 15 minutes. In particular, all of them used to watch TV during this moment: no differences were found between urban/rural or BMI categories (p = 0.87 and p = 0.98). In general, most of urban children performed physical activity less than seven hours/week, while normal weight subjects were more active than obese one (p = 0.04). We concluded that school promotion and municipalities/institutions intervention could be a good solution to reach all children in environment where the amount of facilities is often poor.
Highlights
The prevalence of obesity in young people increased in the last twenty years [1] and is considered as a global epidemic [2]: epidemiological evidences demonstrated a positive correlation between high body fat percentage and health risks of mortality [3]
These discrepancies between two countries are affected by the life habits (i.e. time spent during meal consumption or watching television during dinner [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]; or the amount of sport practice [11]): the juvenile obesity depended on environmental-educational causes for 95% while the genetic causes were only 5% [12]
The juvenile obesity is correlated to meal habit [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] and the socio-economic context could determine different approaches to diet, sport practice and domestic habits
Summary
The prevalence of obesity in young people increased in the last twenty years [1] and is considered as a global epidemic [2]: epidemiological evidences demonstrated a positive correlation between high body fat percentage and health risks of mortality [3]. Recent epidemiological data provided by the US Center Disease Control [5] showed an increase of obesity two times more than the period from 1995 to 2005 following a same trend between rural and urban context, while in China the urban and rural differences were kept [4] These discrepancies between two countries are affected by the life habits (i.e. time spent during meal consumption or watching television during dinner [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]; or the amount of sport practice (hour per week) [11]): the juvenile obesity depended on environmental-educational causes for 95% while the genetic causes were only 5% [12]. These differences could suggest educational approach in school context, like parental education for domestic habits or sensibilization approach in classroom
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