{"id":1292,"date":"2014-09-22T14:56:50","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T12:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ijph.blogs.springer.com\/?p=1292"},"modified":"2014-09-22T14:56:50","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T12:56:50","slug":"childhood-obesity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/food-for-thought\/childhood-obesity\/","title":{"rendered":"Childhood obesity: Is ethnicity a better predictor than socioeconomic status?"},"content":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/ijph.blogs.springer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/australia.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-1293\" src=\"http:\/\/ijph.blogs.springer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/australia.jpg\" alt=\"australia\" width=\"452\" height=\"339\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2014\/09\/australia.jpg 640w, http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2014\/09\/australia-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 452px) 100vw, 452px\" \/><\/a>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/dietphysicalactivity\/childhood\/en\/\">According to the WHO<\/a>, childhood obesity is one of the most serious Public Health challenges of the 21st century. As obesity (and its consequences like type 2 diabetes) are largely preventable, preventing it is (or should be) of high priority.<\/p>\n<p>In order f0r such interventions to be more effective, it is useful to study its predictors. In <a href=\"http:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s00038-014-0605-3\">a study we recently published<\/a>, the authors sought to investigate not only the prevalence of obesity, overweight and thinness in Australian schoolchildren, but also their relationship to socioeconomic status and ethnic cultural groups.<\/p>\n<p>Data was used from national surveys in 2006 and 2012, including more than 20,000 patients in total. The main results can be summarized as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0The prevalence of obesity was 7.5% for boys and 7.1% for girls in 2006 and 5.8% for boys and 5.6% for girls in 2012.<\/li>\n<li>The prevalence of overweight was 17.7% in 2006 and 18.9% in 2012 in boys and 18.5% in 2006 and 18.7% in 2012 in girls.<\/li>\n<li>Prevalence rates for thinness were 3.8% for boys and 4.6% for girls in 2006 and 5.0 for boys and 6.0&amp; for girls in 2012.<\/li>\n<li>Children of low socioeconomic status were about 2.2 times more likely to be obese both in 2006 and 2012<\/li>\n<li>Thinness was more ethnic and gender based: Children from Asian, Indian and African origin were more susceptible to thinness in both time points.<\/li>\n<li>For children from African origin, however, the risk of thinness decreased in 2012, while their risk for obesity increased. This might demonstrate an acculturation effect, with those children adopting a more westernised way of eating.<\/li>\n<li>Greater obesity was observed in Pacific Islander, Polynesian, Middle Eastern, Southern European and Aboriginal children. These groups might be susceptible to future health risks, such as type 2 diabetes. Considering the higher risk for type 2 diabetes in some of these ethnic groups (Polynesian, Aboriginals, Africans) shows the further need for obesity prevention interventions in those groups.<\/li>\n<li>There is a consistent gender difference both in obesity and thinness.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The authors conclude that interventions should be culturally appropriate, targeting socially and economically disadvantaged communities.<\/p>\n<p>How is it in your country? Are there any obesity prevention interventions for children you are aware of? And do they take into account culture, ethnicity and socioeconomic level?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>*This paper was written by <a href=\"http:\/\/fdp.edsw.usyd.edu.au\/users\/167\">Jennifer A. O&#8217;Dea<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/sydney.edu.au\/medicine\/people\/academics\/profiles\/michael.dibley.php\">Michael J. Dibley <\/a><\/p>\n<p>** <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ruthanddave\/390207083\">Picture credit <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">According to the WHO, childhood obesity is one of the most serious Public Health challenges of the 21st century. As obesity (and its consequences like type 2 diabetes) are largely preventable, preventing it is (or should be) of high priority. In order f0r such interventions to be more effective, it is useful to study its&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/food-for-thought\/childhood-obesity\/\" title=\"Read Childhood obesity: Is ethnicity a better predictor than socioeconomic status?\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":301,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10,11,21],"tags":[39,153,205,282,625,639,678,788,817,889],"class_list":["post-1292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-for-thought","category-hot-off-the-press","category-international-journal-of-public-health","category-social-inequalities","tag-adolescents","tag-children","tag-culture","tag-ethnicity","tag-obesity","tag-overweight","tag-prevalence","tag-ses","tag-socioeconomic-status","tag-thinness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/301"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}