Rural Childhood Obesity - An Emerging Health Concern.

Background: Childhood obesity is growing globally as an epidemic. It is the most common metabolic disease identified in children.

Objective: To assess the nutritional status of school going children in Poonamallee, Tamil Nadu and to compare the nutritional status between urban and rural school children.

Methods: A retrospective review of the school health records over a period of 9 months was done with Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) approval for a total of 1,803 children aged 5 to 18 years (916- rural, 887-urban). Revised IAP growth charts (2015) were used to classify their nutrition status.

Results: The overall prevalence of overweight/obesity and thinness/severe thinness in our study was 20% and 9.4%, respectively. In the rural schools, the prevalence of overweight/obesity and thinness was 16.2% and 12.2%, respectively, whereas in the urban schools, it was 24% and 6.4%, respectively. The rural school children had lower mean Z scores of weight for age, height for age, and BMI for age compared to urban children ( < 0.001).

Conclusion: Among rural school children overweight/obesity is more prevalent than undernutrition. There is an urgent need for nutrition education for the school children and community.