Overweight and Obesity in Portuguese Children: Prevalence and Correlates

Abstract

There are widespread differences in overweight/obesity prevalence in children, and understanding the reasons for this is very important. The present study aims: (I) to conduct a meta-analysis on overweight/obesity prevalence in Portuguese children; (II) to identify differences in biological and behavioural characteristics between normal-weight and overweight/obese children; and (III) to investigate the importance of individual- and school-level correlates of variation in children’s BMI using multilevel modelling. A search was done for all published papers including Portuguese children during the last decade; further, 686 Portuguese children (9–11 years old) were sampled and their BMI, family income, maturity offset, nutritional habits, physical activity, sedentariness, sleep time, and school environment information were collected. Results showed a stabilization of overweight/obesity during the last decade, 30.6% (95%CI: 0.287–0.34) for boys, 28.4% (95%CI: 0.23–0.35) for girls, and 30.3% (95%CI: 0.27–0.34) for boys and girls together. Differences between weight groups were only found in individual-level biological traits. The multilevel analysis did not identify significant contributions of school-level variables to children’s BMI variation. In conclusion, no increase was found in the prevalence of overweight/obesity among Portuguese children since 2000. Normal-weight and overweight/obese children only differ in individual-level characteristics, and school context variables were not related to variation in BMI.

Prevalence of Abdominal Obesity and Excess Weight among Portuguese Children and Why Abdominal Obesity Should Be Included in Clinical Practice

“…17 Those results, compared with the prevalence found in this study for overweight (15.9%), obesity (6.1%) and overweight including obesity (21.9%), suggest that the prevalence of overweight and obesity may have been decreasing in the last few years. This possible plateau in the prevalence of overweight/obesity in Portugal was already suggested by Gomes and colleagues, 4 and has been found Results presented as percentage (95% confidence interval), n, and chi-squared tests (including Cramer's V). WHtR: waist-to-height ratio; BMI: body mass index; overweight and obesity are defined according to the IOTF cut-offs of BMI in several European countries.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5] The health consequences of overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity during childhood are strongly associated with risk factors for a number of medical conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer. [6][7][8][9] Previous findings shown that abdominal obesity is a better predictor of cardiovascular disease and metabolic risk factors in children than body mass index (BMI) and generalized obesity, 10,11 Also, childhood obesity is an important predictor of adult obesity and related comorbidities.…”

“…4,[15][16][17] A number of methodologies are used to define children's nutritional status, like the cut-off points from the World Health Organization (WHO) 18 and the ones from the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF). 19 Previous works have concluded that the WHO criteria seem better to detect obesity and overweight in children from a population although, to confirm the disease, namely in a clinical context, the IOTF criterion seems to be more accurate to define obesity and has become the most commonly method used among Portuguese samples.…”

Screen time between Portuguese and Brazilian children: a cross-cultural study

“…Guidelines or recommendations are not common in developing countries yet and it seems that public health messages about limiting ST, in particular, may be important as there are changes in lifestyles occurring throughout all over the world 9 . Additionally, in Portuguese schoolchildren, the prevalence of overweight is high 28,29 ,around 30.0% [30][31][32] and it is among the highest in Europe 31 . However, stabilization seems to have occurred during the last decade 29,32,33 .…”

“…Additionally, in Portuguese schoolchildren, the prevalence of overweight is high 28,29 ,around 30.0% [30][31][32] and it is among the highest in Europe 31 . However, stabilization seems to have occurred during the last decade 29,32,33 . Increased BMI have been observed in the Brazilian population, even in comparison to children from other countries 34 , although there are variations in the prevalence rates of overweight and obesity in the different regions of Brazil, the values identified are high and worrying 35 .…”