Tracking overweight and obesity in Japanese children ; a six years longitudinal study

概要

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Childhood overweight/obesity is growing steeply, globally. It is usually regardedas a risk factor for severe obesity over life-time course. Here, we investigated temporalcourse of overweight/obesity development in Japanese school children. A six-year longitudinalstudy was performed on 16,245 Japanese primary school children (8,427 boys and7,818 girls) comprising three cohorts of 1st~3rd grade. A baseline survey was conducted at2001, followed by annual baseline studies from 2002~2007 to determine the prevalenceand track overweight/obesity. Our results showed that the prevalence of overweight was15~23% in boys and 15~18% in girls, however, for obesity it ranged between 4~7% in boys ;and 2~4% in girls. As regards for tracking status, 60~80% of overweight and 35~70% ofobese Japanese primary school boys track into overweight or obese junior high schooladolescents. However, these percentages are lower among primary school girls, whereonly 50~70% overweight and 30~60% obese primary school girls track into overweightand obese adolescents, respectively. We conclude that Japanese boys are fatter than girls ;and ~80% of overweight/obese Japanese primary school children track into junior highschool overweight/obese adolescents.