Prevalence of obesity, overweight and central obesity among adolescent girls in national school in Batticaloa district, Sri Lanka

Introduction:

The prevalence of childhood obesity has increased over the recent decades. Obesity is a major risk factor for chronic diseases and plays a central role in insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.

Methods:

The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of obesity and abdominal obesity by means of body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) in adolescent girls in a National school in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. Based on age and sex specific BMI percentiles (CDC Chart), the students were classifiedas underweight (<5thpercentile), normal weight (5th-<85thpercentile), overweight (85th-<95thpercentiles), and obese (≥95thpercentile). Central obesity was categorized as WHtR ≥ 0.5. Adolescent girls (aged 14-19 years) attending the ten & twelve grades (n = 310) in a girl’s high school at Batticaloa were participated in the study.

Results:

The prevalence of obesity and overweight were 5.5% and 9.4% among the girls. The prevalence of central obesity was 21.6%. Around 11.16% of girls in the normal weight group were centrally obese. There was a significant relationship between WHtR and BMI status (P = 0.0001).

Conclusion:

Our study provides evidence showing a high prevalence of overall and central obesity in adolescent girls in our population. We emphasize the need for further large-scale surveillance programs and preventive strategies in our population to reduce the incidence of obesity.