ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Targeted measures to prevent overweight children are dependent on a knowledge of which environmental factors play a part. We wanted to investigate whether overweight in Norwegian eight-year-olds is related to whether they live in urban or rural areas. MATERIAL AND METHOD: In the cross-sectional study "Children's growth in Norway 2008", the weight, height and waist of 3473 eight-year-olds were measured. We examined relationships between overweight and waist measurement and centrality, population density and number of inhabitants in the municipalities where the children lived by means of regression analyses. RESULT: In adjusted analyses, the odds on children in central municipalities being overweight was 34 lower than for children in less central municipalities (OR = 0.66; 95 % CI: 0.46-0.94), and children in municipalities with a high population density had on average 0.66 cm smaller waists than children in municipalities with a low population density (95 % CI: 0.02-1.31). The relationships between overweight and the explanatory variables population density and number of inhabitants, and between waist measurement and the explanatory variables centrality and population density showed the same tendency, but were not statistically significant in the adjusted analyses. INTERPRETATION: The results indicate that there is a higher percentage of overweight children in rural areas than in urban areas. Education and income level in the municipalities appeared to explain some of the effect of the urbanity variables on overweight and waist measurement.
