Nutritional status of school-aged children of Buenos Aires, Argentina: data using three references.

BACKGROUND: Childhood overweight has been reported in developing countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a standardized classification system in order to facilitate comparison across countries and studies. This study aims to assess the prevalence of overweight, obesity and thinness in a group of 10-11-year-old children using three references [the Center for Disease Control (CDC) 2000, the the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) 2000 and the WHO, 2007].

METHODS: A representative sample of 1588 children (771 boys and 817 girls) resulted from the randomization of 80 public schools from Buenos Aires.

RESULTS: The prevalence of overweight, including obesity, for the whole sample was 35.5, 27.9 and 27.9%, respectively, depending on the reference used. For overweight, no gender differences were observed regardless of the reference used. Obesity was significantly more frequent among boys, and this remained consistent for the three references. Thinness frequency was 1.6 and 2.5% for the boys and 2.7 and 4.5% for the girls when considering the WHO and CDC cut-off points, respectively, and frequency increased in both boys and girls for each age group.

CONCLUSION: There is a high prevalence of overweight and obese cases among school-aged children of Buenos Aires regardless of the reference used. Epidemiological data provided by this study suggests the urgent need to design preventive interventions.