Prevalence of and contributing factors to overweight and obesity among the schoolchildren of Podgorica, Montenegro

Abstract

Introduction/Objective. Childhood obesity is an emerging public health problem. The national prevalence of child overweight/obesity in Montenegro has increased by one third in the last decade. As the overwhelming majority of Montenegrin population is urban, investigation of obesity and correlates among urban children is of special public health interest. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of and contributing factors to obesity among schoolchildren of Podgorica. Method. The sample included 1,134 schoolchildren (49.8% boys) aged 7?12 years, from 10 elementary schools in Podgorica. We measured children?s body mass, body height, and waist circumference to calculate body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-height ratio. The research instrument was a closed type of the original questionnaire. Nutritional status was assessed according to the criteria recommended by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization and International Obesity Task Force. Results. Among the investigated children there were 21.2% and 6% overweight and obese children, respectively. Obesity was more frequent among boys (7.6%) compared to girls (4.4%). In a multiple regression, childhood obesity was positively related to the following: male gender, younger age, lower number of siblings, parental obesity, and low physical activity. Conclusion. One out of five urban Montenegrin schoolchildren is overweight/obese, with obesity being twice as frequent among boys compared to girls. A program against obesity among urban Montenegrin children should focus on the revealed contributing factors.

Analysis of Nutritional Status of Primary School Children in Montenegro

“…In the study Martinović et al (2015), WHO standards showed the highest rate of obese respondents and it is about 15.00% compared to 12.30% (CDC) and only 7.00% (IOTF) in boys and 6.50% (WHO), 5.60% (CDC) and 3.50% (IOTF) in girls. Approximately similar relationship of nutritional status was recorded in the research of Jakšić et al (2017), where e.g. the lowest percentage of normally fed subjects showed the WHO standard (61.60%) compared to 64.10% (CDC) and 67.80% (IOTF) in boys and 72.70% (WHO and CDC) and 74.10% IOTF) in girls.…”

“…A very similar relationship between the degree of nutrition of the respondents depending on the application of different standards was confirmed in the research of Milašinović et al, (2019) where WHO standards show the lowest percentage of malnourished and normally fed subjects, while the percentage of malnourished and obese according to WHO standards is significantly higher compared to CDC and IOTF. A review of the obtained results of all studies, it is concluded that malnutrition generally ranges from 0.90 to 6.20% for male respondents and in the range of 1.00-5.28% for female respondents (Baćović, 2020;Banjari et al, 2020;Banjević, 2019;Malović, 2019;Jakšić et al, 2017;Martinović et al, 2015). A slightly higher percentage of malnutrition was observed according to IOTF standards in the study of Milašinović et al, (2019), where malnutrition was 10.50% for boys and 7.50% for girls.…”

“…Table 1 presents the basic elements of the research included in this review. According to the criterion related to the selection of standardized assessment scales used by researchers to determine the nutritional status of respondents, research can be divided into 4 groups: research in which the assessment scale (percentile scale) of the World Health Organization was applied (Malović, 2019;Baćović, 2020), Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Vailjević et al, 2015;Vasiljević, Bjelica, & Gardašević, 2018;Banjević, 2019), International Working Group on Obesity (Jakšić et al, 2019;Banjari and et al, 2020), Center for National Examination of Health and Nutrition (Šćepanović et al, 2019) and a combination of the aforementioned scales (Martinović et al, 2015;Jakšić et al, 2017 ;Milašinović et al, 2019).…”

“…To determine nutritional status, researchers used different standardized percentile assessment scales (WHO, CDC, IOTF, NHANES I). It is very important to note that by applying different standards for determining the nutritional status of respondents, we get different results for the same sample of respondents (Milašinović et al, 2019;Jakšić et al, 2017;Martinović et al, 2015). World Health Organization standards generally show the lowest percentage of malnutrition and the highest percentage of obese respondents.…”

Differences in the degree of nutrition and body composition of boys and girls of pubertal age

“…Increased nutrition on the side of boys compared to girls has been found in previous researches. Jakšić et al [18] stating the results: ,,Directorate for employment, labour and social affairs, data from 2014, the highest prevalence of OWOb (overweight/obesity) was recorded in Greece (44% of boys and 38% of girls) followed by Italy (36% vs. 34%), New Zealand (34% vs. 34%), USA (30% vs. 30%), while the lowest prevalence was recorded in Indonesia (11% vs.8%). Differences between prevalence of OWOb in favor of boys were found in China (24%vs.…”