Explaining Overweight and Obesity in Children and Adolescents of Asian Indian Origin: The Calcutta Childhood Obesity Study.

ABSTRACT

The present study was aimed to find out the prevalence of overweight and obesity and its associated factors among Bengalee children and adolescents in the Kolkata, India. A total of 1061 Bengalee school children and adolescents (610 boys and 451 girls) participated and were divided into three age groups Group I = 8-11 years; Group II = 12-15 years and Group III = 16-18 years. Overweight and obesity were defined as Overweight (between ≥85th and <95th percentile) and obesity (≥95th percentile). Multivariate regression analyses (adjusted for age and sex) of body mass index (BMI) revealed that about 18% (R2 = 0.185) of total variance of BMI could be explained by monthly family income, participants think obese, consumption of too much junk foodstuffs, breakfast skip, extra consumption of salt, and computer hours. Sedentary lifestyles, including increasing fast food preferences may be responsible for increasing occurrence of pediatric and adolescent obesity in this population.