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Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Prevalence of overweight and obesity in European children below the age of 10
W Ahrens1, I Pigeot1, H Pohlabeln2
11] Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology-BIPS, Bremen, Germany [2] Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Institute of Statistics, Bremen University, Bremen, Germany.
Insights
European children face significant overweight and obesity disparities, with higher rates in southern regions and lower socioeconomic groups. Addressing these inequalities requires reinforced public health policies to prevent childhood obesity.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Public Health
- Nutritional Epidemiology
- Childhood Obesity Research
Background:
- Lack of standardized surveillance for childhood overweight and obesity across Europe.
- Existing data comparability is limited by sampling, methods, and quality assurance.
- The IDEFICS study offers a large, methodologically robust European dataset on young children's health.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the European distribution of weight status in children aged 2.0-9.9 years using various BMI classification systems.
- To determine the prevalence of weight categories by region, sex, age, and socioeconomic position.
- To highlight regional and socioeconomic disparities in childhood overweight and obesity.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from 18,745 children across eight European countries (2007-2010).
- Employed a highly standardized protocol including anthropometric measurements and parental socio-demographic reports.
- Applied different reference systems for Body Mass Index (BMI) classification.
Main Results:
- Combined overweight/obesity prevalence varied widely, from <10% in Northern Europe to >40% in Southern Europe.
- Overweight prevalence was higher in girls (21.1%) than boys (18.6%).
- Obesity prevalence negatively correlated with socioeconomic position, being highest in low-income/education groups.
Conclusions:
- Southern European populations and those with lower socioeconomic status exhibit higher obesity rates.
- Significant regional and socioeconomic disparities in childhood obesity necessitate action.
- Reinforced European public health policies are crucial for preventing early obesity and reducing health inequalities.
Background:
There is a lack of common surveillance systems providing comparable figures and temporal trends of the prevalence of overweight (OW), obesity and related risk factors among European preschool and school children. Comparability of available data is limited in terms of sampling design, methodological approaches and quality assurance. The IDEFICS (Identification and prevention of Dietary- and lifestyle-induced health Effects in Children and infantS) study provides one of the largest European data sets of young children based on state-of-the-art methodology.
Objective:
To assess the European distribution of weight status according to different classification systems based on body mass index (BMI) in children (2.0-9.9 years). To describe the prevalence of weight categories by region, sex, age and socioeconomic position.
Design:
Between 2007 and 2010, 18,745 children from eight European countries participated in an extensive, highly standardised protocol including, among other measures, anthropometric examinations and parental reports on socio-demographic characteristics.
Results:
The combined prevalence of OW/obesity ranges from more than 40% in southern Europe to less than 10% in northern Europe. Overall, the prevalence of OW was higher in girls (21.1%) as compared with boys (18.6%). The prevalence of OW shows a negative gradient with social position, with some variation of the strength and consistency of this association across Europe. Overall, population groups with low income and/or lower education levels show the highest prevalence of obesity. The use of different reference systems to classify OW results in substantial differences in prevalence estimates and can even reverse the reported difference between boys and girls.
Conclusions:
There is a higher prevalence of obesity in populations from southern Europe and in population groups with lower education and income levels. Our data confirm the need to develop and reinforce European public health policies to prevent early obesity and to reduce these health inequalities and regional disparities.
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