Abstract
Childhood obesity prevalence amongst children is rising virtually in all countries with rapid acceleration in major cities in China. A cross-sectional study was conducted amongst 2,015 primary and secondary students in Macao to investigate the nutritional status and analyzed for the relationship of overweight and other cardio-metabolic risk factors. Subjects were randomly selected in proportion to the gender and age of the population. A total of 26.4% of boys and 13.9% of girls were overweight or obese with the highest prevalence around 40% among boys aged 9–12 and girls aged 10 and 11. Some 18.1% of boys and 20.4% of girls were found to have borderline LDL levels; a further 9.3% and 10.4% were found to have high-risk, respectively. For those students with overweight and obesity, a significant higher proportion of them had cardio-metabolic risk factors. Based on this evidence, there is a concern that obesity and its associated co-morbidity could reach epidemic proportions in the ‘less industrialized’ cities of China.
Acknowledgements
The study was supported by the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau of Macao Special Administrative Region Government (Grant No CUHK Ref TE084381). The authors would also like to thank all the study schools, families and students for their cooperation and participation.
Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
Appendix 1. The Standards and Cut-offs Used in the Anthropometric Assessment and Blood Tests.
Appendix 2. The socio-demographic characteristics of the subjects.