Prevalence of Overweight and Associated Factors in a Male Prison Population in the Extreme South of Brazil: A Cross-Sectional Study.

This cross-sectional study serves as a first Brazilian inventory about overweight as a marker for metabolic health and risk factor to develop noncommunicable chronic diseases in prison populations. The prevalence of overweight, and its associated factors in prisoners of the Fifth Regional State Penitentiary of Rio Grande do Sul (5th DPR) in the extreme South of Brazil were investigated using a precoded questionnaire with sociodemographic, behavioral, and health questions, applied to proportional stratified random sampled prisoners. Five hundred eighty male prisoners (70%) in the closed regime agreed to answer the questionnaire and allowed anthropomorphic body measurement, carried out by trained scientists.

Diagnostic properties and cutoff points for overweight prediction through anthropometric indicators in adolescents from Caracol, Piauí, Brazil, 2011.

Objective: to assess the diagnostic criteria and propose cutoff points for waist circumference (WC), arm circumference (AC), leg circumference (LC) and waist/height ratio (WHR) for overweight prediction in adolescents.

Methods: a census with all individuals aged 13-19 years old (N=1,075) from the municipality of Caracol-PI, Brazil was carried out; overweight was defined as body mass index (BMI) above one z-score, according to the criterion of the World Health Organization.

Results: the cutoff points (in centimeters) of WC, AC, LC and WHR for overweight prediction were, respectively, 76.

[Overweight among young people in a city in the Brazilian semiarid region: a population-based study].

The scope of this article is to measure the prevalence and identify factors associated with excess weight among young people living in the city of Caracol, Piaui, Brazil. Qualified interviewers applied a standardized questionnaire and assessed the anthropometric measurements of all young people (13 to 19 years of age) in their households. The questionnaires sought information on demographic, socioeconomic and behavioral characteristics.