%0 Journal Article
%T Prevalence of overweight and obesity on the island of Ireland: results from the North South Survey of Children's Height, Weight and Body Mass Index, 2002
%A Helen Whelton
%A Janas Harrington
%A Evelyn Crowley
%A Virginia Kelleher
%A Michael Cronin
%A Ivan J Perry
%J BMC Public Health
%D 2007
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2458-7-187
%X The heights and weights of 19,617 school-going children and adolescents aged between 4 and 16 years in NI and RoI were measured using standardised and calibrated scales and measures. The participants were a representative cross-sectional sample of children randomly selected on the basis of age, gender and geographical location of the school attended. Overweight and obesity were classified according to standard IOTF criteria.Males were taller than females, children in RoI were taller than those in NI and the more affluent were taller than the less well off. The overall prevalence of overweight and obesity was higher among females than males in both jurisdictions. Overall, almost one in four boys (23% RoI and NI) and over one in four girls (28% RoI, 25% NI) were either overweight or obese. In RoI, the highest prevalence of overweight was among 13 year old girls (32%) and obesity among 7 year old girls (11%). In NI the highest prevalence of overweight and obesity were found among 11 and 8 year old girls respectively (33% and 13%).These figures confirm the emergence of the obesity epidemic among children in Ireland, a wealthy country with the European Union. The results serve to underpin the urgency of implementing broad intersectoral measures to reduce calorie intake and increase levels of physical activity, particularly among children.Obesity is one of the major public health challenges of our time. In the US at least one quarter of the adult population is obese. In Ireland current estimates suggest that one in five adults is obese posing a particular threat to the population given our high mortality from cardiovascular disease relative to other European countries [1,2]. Over the past decade there is evidence of an emerging epidemic of childhood obesity worldwide [3,4] and it is suggested that children in established market economies, born at the start of the 21st century, may have a shorter life expectancy than their parents as a result of the health consequences of
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/187