Abstract

Background: Obesity is one of the three gravest threats to human health globally. There was no study on association of obesity with physical activity of children of the 2^nd holiest city of Muslims Al Madinah Al Munawarrah which is located on North West of Saudi Arabia.

Objectives: This study aimed to

• Evaluate the prevalence of overweight and obesity in school children.
• To study association of physical activity and obesity.

Methods: Participants were healthy school boys and girls aged 5 - 18 years. Study design was cross-sectional. A total of 6000 school children, consisting of 3000 boys and 3000 girls from twenty (20) schools were enrolled. School selection was done by random stratification with the help of Ministry of education. Data were collected between April - December 2017. Height and weight of children were measured to calculate percentiles for BMI-for-age and -sex according to the 2000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) growth charts, Overweight and obesity was defined as BMI-for-age/sex ≥ 85^th and ≥ 95^th percentile respectively.

Results: The overall prevalence of obesity was 14.7% (n = 588). Obesity Prevalence in boys was 16% (n = 347) and in girls was 14% (n = 241). The overall prevalence of overweight was 15.4% (n = 616). The Prevalence in boys was 16% (n = 366) and in girls was 14% (n = 250). There was negative correlation between Physical activity and Body Mass Index. This relationship is also highly significant. (P -Value < .0005)

Conclusions: Overweight and obesity in school children in Al Madinah Al Munawarrah is similar to global prevalence. Physical activity is a major risk factor for obesity in school children. Physical activity programs should be seriously implemented at education levels in every school of AlMadinah Al Munawarah to control this epidemic with coordination of Ministry of education and Ministry of health.

Keywords: Obesity; Physical Activity; School Children

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Citation

Citation: Atta UR Rehman Khan and Meshal Al Malki. “Association of Physical Activity with Obesity Trends in School Children of Madinah Al Munawarrah-A Cross-Sectional Study".Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 4.11 (2020): 32-40.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Atta UR Rehman Khan and Meshal Al Malki. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.