Prevalence of Overweight in High School Students with Special Reference to Cardiovascular Efficiency

BACKGROUND: In India, malnutrition has two ends. Under nutrition attracted the focus of health workers, as it is more prevalent. But over the past few years, childhood obesity is increasingly being observed with the changing lifestyle of families with increased purchasing power, increasing hours of inactivity due to television, video games and computers have replaced outdoor games and other social activities. Globally, an estimated 10% of school-aged children, between 5 and 17 years of age, are overweight and obese. Obesity can be seen as first wave of a defined cluster of non-communicable diseases called “New World Syndrome” creating an enormous socio-economic and public health burden in poorer countries. The most important consequence of childhood obesity is its persistence into adulthood with all its health risks like dyslipidemia, hyper-insulinemia, cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, gall bladder disease, hypertension and some sex hormone- sensitive cancers. The present study was, therefore, undertaken to determine the prevalence of overweight in high school students and to study the association between Body Mass Index (BMI) and cardiovascular efficiency. METHODOLOGY: A school based cross sectional study was conducted in 2 schools of Nagpur. The total number of students included in the study was 565. Student’s complete information regarding profile was taken in pretested questionnaire format after taking informed consent of parents. The anthropometric measurements of the students were done. Student’s height and weight were measured and BMI was calculated. The student’s cardiovascular efficiency was assessed with the help of Harvard step test. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: The data was analyzed using Epi info version 3.4.1 software. Chi-square test was used as test of significance and p value less than 0.05 was considered as significant. RESULTS: 90.97% students belonged to 13, 14 and 15 years of age group. majority of the students belong to 14 years (33.81), followed by 13 years (33.27) and 15 years (23.89) of age group respectively. The prevalence of overweight in students was 5.84% and obesity was 0.35%. The combined prevalence of overweight and obesity was 6.19%. The prevalence of overweight in boys is 5.31% and obesity was 0.63% and that in girls is 6.53% and 0% respectively. The association between Harvard step test and overweight was found to be statistically significant (p< 0.000001). CONCLUSION: The total prevalence of overweight and obesity was 6.19%. The association between Harvard step test and overweight was found to be statistically significant (p< 0.000001).