The level and pattern of physical activity among fifth-grade students in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Overweight and obesity among Vietnamese school-aged children: National prevalence estimates based on the World Health Organization and International Obesity Task Force definition

“…Sex differences which drive unique prevalences of overweight and obesity in individuals is noteworthy, especially for the male group which has a significantly higher prevalence of both conditions as compared to their female counterparts. A similar observation was reported in all of published studies in regards to youth prevalence of overweight and obesity in Vietnam [12][13][14][17][18][19][20], in addition to other populations in China [21,33,39,47], India [31], South Korea [32], Portugal [34,50], and Asian American [49]. These difference may be due to the sex differences which influence individual body composition, hormone biology, the onset and duration of puberty, physical activities patterns, and dietary habits [51].…”

“…Although most of the earliest studies which surveyed the prevalence of overweight and obesity among Vietnamese children was conducted in Ho Chi Minh City-a metropolitan city of Vietnam, numerous papers indicate different findings [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. The details describing the various findings of previous studies is shown in the S2 Table. During 2007-2010, it was evident that there was a low proportion of overweight (around 10%) and obese (less than 2%) children according to IOTF reference [13,16] and WHO Z-score [12] were reported while malnutrition of Vietnamese children also remained a significant issues at that time [12].…”

“…However, this report only provides information using the WHO Z-score criteria and does not provide information in regards to the sampling method [12]. There have been some studies which examine the obesity prevalence among Vietnamese children and adolescents currently [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. However, a major limitation of these studies is that the investigators used either WHO Z-score or IOTF reference for calculating and surveyed small districts of Vietnamese metropolis (mostly in Ho Chi Minh city) [13,14,[16][17][18][19][20].…”

“…Whereas, the evidence of such association among Vietnamese children is quite limited. All current studies on childhood obesity in Vietnam have indicated an association between overweight/ obesity risk and sexes [ 13 – 17 , 19 , 20 ]. Specifically, only three of these studies identified higher risk among children who live in urban areas, with wealthier families, are physical inactive, live with parental obesity, and have an unhealthy diet [ 13 – 15 ].…”

Association of screen time with academic performance and behaviour among primary school children of Kandy district Sri Lanka

“…Screen time is defi ned as the time spent on using TV/video, computer, electronic games, and other visual devices [1]. Screen viewing is considered as one of the most common sedentary activities in which children participate in [2].…”