Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity Among Preschool Children from Six Cities of Northeast China

Abstract

This study was carried out to assess and investigate the prevalence of overweight and obesity among preschool-age children living in northeast China using the World Health Organization (WHO), International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) standard criteria and to explore the differences in estimates by using the three reference standards. We used data from 8,653 preschool children with an average age of 5.02 years. Weight and height were obtained for each child and body mass index (BMI) was calculated. The prevalence of overweight and obesity was then determined using the CDC, IOTF and WHO guidelines. According to the IOTF reference, 10.98% of the children were overweight and 6.08% were obese. The CDC reference classified 11.27% as overweight and 11.72% as obese. However, with the WHO reference, 10.93% were overweight and 13.81% were obese. There was significant gender difference in the prevalence of overweight and obesity based on the CDC and WHO references. According to age classification, differences in the frequencies of obesity in both boys and girls reached statistical significance using the three references, and the differences were gradually improved from the WHO to CDC and IOTF cut-off points. In this study, the WHO and the CDC references demonstrated a high level of agreement (kappa= 0.89). The results indicate overweight and obesity prevalence among preschool children in northeast China is comparable to some Western countries. The WHO reported a much higher prevalence of obesity compared to other references. Age, gender and method differences in the prevalence of overweight and obesity suggested a systematic evaluation of the preschool children in China.