Obesity and its Determinants among the Children with Bronchial Asthma

Abstract

Childhood Asthma is a major health problem and obesity is a grave consequence of its treatment among the children. The cross sectional study was conducted among 104 children with Bronchial Asthma at the outpatient department of National Asthma Centre, Dhaka during the period January to June, 2012 to determine obesity and its determinants among the children with Bronchial Asthma. Data were collected through face-to-face interview and reviewing medical records by using a semi-structured questionnaire and checklist respectively. Majority (67.0%) of the asthmatic children was male and the mean age of the children was 11.5 (+4.075) years. Most (88.5%) of them were Muslim and majority (54.8%) had 5-7 family members with average family size 4.84 (+23.1). Average monthly family income was Tk.19750.00 (10233.915). Among the children 65.4% had family history of asthma and majority was fathers (30.9%). Majority (63.7%) of children performed physical exercise and majority (45.5%) did for 30 minutes. Aggravating factors for asthma included cold exposure (50.0%), hot weather (48.1%), dust exposure (36.5%) and allergy (13.5%). Majority (67.3%) attended to Government hospitals and doctors chamber (61.5%) for treatment. Regarding food habit, majority (51.9%) were fond of meat followed by fast food (24.0%), sweet food (21.2%), and soft drinks (17.3%). Regarding obesity 11.5% children were overweight, 15.4% were class 1 (moderate) obese and 54.0% had family history of obesity. Drugs used by the children were montelukast (59.6%), theophylline (59.6%), steroid (42.3%), ketotifen (23.1%) and salbutamol (32.7%). Most (98%) children used the drugs for 2-12 months. Overweight and obesity were significantly (2, p 0.01) higher among users of steroid (54.5%), montelukast (35.5%), ketotifen (79.2%) and salbutamol (67.6%) than non-users of steroid (6.6%), montelukast (14.2%), ketotifen (11.3%) and salbutamol (7.2%). Obesity was significantly (2, p 0.01) higher among who had family .........