Objectives Childhood obesity is a public health concern in Portugal. Socio‐demographic and behavioral factors are highly associated with obesity but are not clearly understood. This article aims to update the prevalence of overweight and obesity in Portuguese children and to explore the influence and risks of socio‐demographic factors and behavioral factors. Methods A cross‐sectional study of Portuguese children aged 3–10 years from all 18 mainland districts took place between March 2009 and January 2010. The sample was composed by 17,136 children, 3–10 years of age (8,455 boys; 8,681 girls). Height, weight, and other anthropometric measurements were obtained by trained technicians. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated along with other anthropometric variables. Data analyses took place between April and September 2012. The overweight/obesity classification was established by age‐and sex‐specific BMI cut‐off points as defined by the International obesity task force (IOTF). Parents completed questionnaires about socio‐demographic and behavioral characteristics of the family. Results Almost 28% of the Portuguese children were overweight or obese (19.7% overweight; 8.2% obese). Prevalence was greater in girls than in boys. Logistic regression models found that the odds of childhood obesity were significantly affected by biological, socio‐demographic, and behavioral factors. Conclusions The protective factors against childhood overweight/obesity in this sample of Portuguese children are: (i) being male; (ii) having been breastfeed; (iii) having been born from mothers who did not smoke during pregnancy; (iv) engaging in little sedentary behaviors (TV, PC, and playing electronic games); (iv) performing at least 1 h of moderate physical activity every day; and (v) having parents with higher educational levels who also have their BMI within the healthy ranges. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 25:733–742, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

BackgroundObesity is a significant global public health problem and the main cause of many chronic diseases in both developed and developing countries. The increase in obesity in different populations worldwide cannot be explained solely by metabolic and genetic factors; environmental and social factors also have a strong association with obesity. Thus, it is believed that the current obesity epidemic is the result of a complex combination of genetic factors and an obesogenic environment .The purpose of this study was to evaluate individual variables and variables within the built and social environment for their potential association with overweight and obesity in an urban Brazilian population.MethodsCross-sectional study was carried out in a sample of 3404 adults living in the urban area of the city. Information from the surveillance system for chronic diseases of Brazilian Ministry of Health was used and individual data was collected by telephone interviews. The database was geocoded using the Brazilian System of Postal Codes for participant residences. An updated, existing list based on the current addresses of supermarkets and hypermarkets in the city was used as an indicator variable of the availability and access to food. Georeferenced information on parks, public squares, places for practicing physical activity and the population density were also used to create data on the built environment. To characterize the social environment, we used the health vulnerability index (HVI) and georeferenced data for homicide locations.ResultsThe prevalence was 44% for overweight, poisson regression was used to create the final model. The environment variables that independently associated with overweight were the highest population density, very high health vulnerability index and the homicide rate adjusted for individuals variables. The results of the current study illustrate and confirm some important associations between individual and environmental variables and overweight in a representative sample of adults in the Brazilian urban context.ConclusionsThe social environment variables relating to the socioeconomic deprivation of the neighborhood and the built environment variables relating to higher walkability were significantly associated with overweight and obesity in Belo Horizonte.

Parental perceptions of neighbourhood safety and the quality of local sidewalks are significantly associated with obesity values.