Obesity, Motor Quality and Physiological Developement Among Urban Preadolescent Children From Midnapore, India

Abstract

In present time obesity has attained a major focus of research as one of the nutritional problems in developed and developing countries. In India this number is increasing day by day due to changing life style in all age group. In this study the prevalence of overweight and obesity were estimated from 105 school going Bengali preadolescent children from middle income-group urban families of Midnapore town, West Bengal, India. They were divided into control, overweight and obese group of each sex according to the respective BMI percentile value. Anthropometric variables, physiological variables, and several motor quality variables were measured. Result obtained revealed that the prevalence of obesity was 18.8% among boys and 23% among girls. The obese group showed increased value of anthropometric parameters. There were significant differences of all of the variables in between control, overweight and obese girls and boys except hand grip strength of both sexes and standing long jump of boys. Product moment correlation showed all variables were significantly correlating with BMI and % of fat. Obese girls were showing higher values of anthropometric parameters and lower values of physiological and motor parameters in comparison with obese boys. Thus this developing urban community is in a growing concern for their growing proportion of obese individual as they are under a substantial handicap in physical performance.