ASSOCIATON OF BMI WITH WAIST CIRCUMFERENCE AND WAIST FOR HEIGHT AMONG URBAN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN WEST BENGAL, INDIA

Background: Childhood obesity has become a major public health concern over the past decade. In India, there is an increasing trend of over weightness and obesity among children & adolescents particularly in urban community. Objective: To investigate the association of body mass index with waist circumference and waist for height of urban primary school children. Design: A community based cross-sectional analytical study. Setting: Government urban primary schools of Charankabi Mukundapur, Lake Girls, Tirthapati and Beleghata in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Subjects & Methods: 560 children aged 6 to 8 years (class II to IV) from four urban primary schools. All subjects underwent physical examination and anthropometric measurements. Results: 19.34% & 17.61% of urban primary school children under study were wasted & severely wasted, respectively while 10.65% & 11.68% were overweight & obese according to BMI. 38.04 % & 6.30% of them had 5th & 95th percentile of waist circumference. 54.34% urban children had 5th percentile of waist for height percentile. Body mass index of children has significant positive correlation (P? 0.01) with waist circumference and waist for height (P? 0.05). Conclusions: The prevalence of overweight and obesity is high among urban primary students but under nutrition in terms of wasting is also common.