Obesity among Bavarian children - experiences from school admittance examinations

Abstract

Obesity in children is an increasing problem worldwide. This article reports on the contribution of the Bavarian school entry health examinations to assess the prevalence and trends of childhood obesity in Bavaria and to identify new risk or protective factors for childhood obesity. This report is based on data from the 1997 state-wide school entry health examination, which was supplemented by a regional questionnaire study and a retrospective regional ascertainment of the BMI distribution in previous school entry health examinations in 1982, 1987 and 1992 and two parent questionnaire studies on risk factors for childhood obesity in a sub-sample of the districts in 1999 and 2001. The prevalence of overweight increased from 8.5 % in 1982 to 12.3 % in 1997 and for obesity from 1.8 to 2.8 % respectively. The increase in the respective prevalence estimates was not related to a shift of the entire BMI distribution but to an increase in the uppermost part of the distribution. The prevalence of obesity in Bavarian children, however, was lower than for children in Brandenburg. Maternal smoking in early pregnancy could be identified as a "new" risk factor for childhood obesity whereas breastfeeding proved to be protective. An increase in the prevalence of obesity in Bavarian children was observed. Increased rates of smoking in early pregnancy might be one explanation for the obesity epidemic in children, since the prevalence of smoking in young women has increased dramatically in recent decades.