Original ArticleOverweight and obesity prevalence and trends in children and adolescents in Cyprus 2000–2010
Introduction
Obesity has been one of the most challenging public health issues in the past decades affecting not only developed countries [1], [2] but also developing ones [2], [3] who suffer from the double burden of disease linked to both under- and over-nutrition. The prevalence of obesity among children and adolescents has been increasing during the past decades though there have been reports for a leveling off trend in some developed regions [4], [5], [6], [7], [8].
Cyprus is a European Union member state in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The prevalence of obesity in Cyprus has been estimated in a representative sample of school-aged children and adolescents for the first time in 2000 [9] and in preschool-aged children in 2004 [10]. In particular, the prevalence of obesity was relatively low in 2–5 year olds being 3% [10] but was much higher in school-aged children reaching 10% at the age of 10–11 y and then decreased to around 4% by the age of 15–17 y [9]. Those results ranked Cyprus among the European countries with the highest prevalences of obesity and overweight at that time [11]. Moreover, there has been evidence that the prevalence of obesity among school-aged children increased substantially within a period of 6 years [12].
Monitoring obesity prevalence is a crucial step in defining national needs and priorities, and evaluating progress of undertaken efforts against obesity. The aim of the present study was to report the 10-year change in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in school-aged children and adolescents in Cyprus.
Section snippets
Methods
A school based study was performed between October 2009 and May 2010 in order to collect anthropometric data to estimate the prevalence of overweight and obesity in a representative sample of school-aged children and adolescents in Cyprus, and compare this prevalence with similar data collected by our Institute 10 years earlier [9]. The survey took place in elementary and secondary schools all over the freely-accessible areas of Cyprus, but in contrary to the previous study [9], not only public
Results
The main characteristics of participants both for the 2009–10 and for the 1999–00 samples are presented in Table 1. There were 3090 participants included in the final analysis of the 2009–10 study (participation rate 65%) whereas, 2467 were included in the earlier study (participation rate 95%). As it is shown in Table 1, the proportion of boys in the 2009–10 study (45.9%) was lower compared to the earlier study (49.1%), p = 0.018. On the contrary there were similar distributions in terms of area
Discussion
Using nationally representative data, the 10 y trends in prevalence of obesity and overweight in children (6.0–11.9 y) and adolescents (12.0–17.9 y) in Cyprus were examined. The present results show that there has been a marked increase in the prevalence of obesity between 1999–00 and 2009–10 time points in children and adolescents 6–17 years of age. The increase was more pronounced in children and adolescents residing in rural areas, and in fact the prevalence of obesity is now higher in rural
Author contributions
SCS and MJT conceived the study. SCS analyzed data and prepared the manuscript. All authors were involved in writing the paper and had final approval of the submitted version.
Funding
The study was funded by grants of the Pedagogical Institute of Cyprus and of the Research and Education Institute of Child Health.
Conflict of interest statement
None declared.
Acknowledgments
This study was performed with the support of Ministry of Education and Culture. Special thanks are addressed to the Pedagogical Institute of Cyprus and particularly to the Institute's Director Mr. Andreas Charalambous for supporting the study. We are greatly indebted to field workers and participants of this study.
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