Article Sidebar
Published:
Jul 13, 2006Article Details
Copyright remains in the Author’s name. The work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Noncommercial Works License. Authors are required to complete and sign an Author Agreement form that outlines Author and Publisher rights and terms of publication. The Agreement form should be uploaded along with other submissions files and any submission will be considered incomplete without it [forthcoming].
Material submitted for publication in the SAMJ is accepted provided it has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Please inform the editorial team if the main findings of your paper have been presented at a conference and published in abstract form, to avoid copyright infringement. The SAMJ does not hold itself responsible for statements made by the authors.
Previously published images
If an image/figure has been previously published, permission to reproduce or alter it must be obtained by the authors from the original publisher and the figure legend must give full credit to the original source. This credit should be accompanied by a letter indicating that permission to reproduce the image has been granted to the author/s. This letter should be uploaded as a supplementary file during submission.
Main Article Content
Obesity and overweight in South African primary school children - the Health of the Nation Study
Abstract
Design: Random sampling of schools within each provincial and socio-economic category.
Setting: Primary school children from 5 South African provinces.
Subjects: 10 195 (5 611 male and 4 584 female) primary school children.
Outcome measure: Height and weight were measured and body mass index (BMI) (weight (kg) / height (m)2) was calculated for each grouping (age x gender x ethnic group). Cut-off points for BMI defining obese and overweight for gender and age (6 - 13 years) were calculated in accordance with international standards2.
Results. There were significant differences in height and mass between the different ethnic groups and genders. This trend was not evident for the BMI values. The prevalence of obesity within the sample was 3.2% for boys and 4.9% for girls, whereas overweight prevalence was 14.0% for boys and 17.9% for girls. When the contribution of each ethnic group was adjusted to the demographics of South Africa these values were only slightly different. The prevalence of obesity and overweight among boys was 2.4% and 10.9% respectively, while obese and overweight girls comprised 4.8% and 17.5%, respectively.
Conclusions: South African children show trends of obesity and overweight, similar to values in developed countries about 10 years ago. Intervention strategies to combat an increasingly sedentary lifestyle may need to be developed for the South African context.
South African Medical Journal Vol. 96(5) 2006: 439-444
