Prevalence of obesity in preschool Greek children, in relation to parental characteristics and region of residence

A total of 2374 children (1218 males and 1156 females) aged 1–5 years, stratified by parental educational level (Census 1999), were examined from 105 nurseries in five counties, from April 2003 to July 2004, Weight (kg) and height (cm) were obtained and BMI (kg/m2) was calculated. Both the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) methods were used to classify each child as "normal", "at risk of overweight" and "overweight". Parental demographic characteristics, such as age and educational level and parental anthropometrical data, such as stature and body weight, were also recorded with the use of a specifically designed questionnaire.The overall estimates of at risk of overweight and overweight using the CDC method was 31.9%, 10.6 percentage points higher than the IOTF estimate of 21.3% and this difference was significant (p < 0.001). Children with one obese parent had 91% greater odds for being overweight compared to those with no obese parent, while the likelihood for being overweight was 2.38 times greater for children with two obese parents in the multivariate model.Both methods used to assess prevalence of obesity have demonstarted that a high percentage of the preschool children in our sample were overweight. Parental body mass index was also shown to be an obesity risk factor in very young children.Overweight and obesity among preschool children is of great concern, because it may lead to long-term health consequences [1]. A number of recent studies have suggested that childhood obesity in most cases tracks into adulthood [2-4] and increases the risk of degenerative diseases later in life [5,6]. More specifically, it has been shown that 69% of children between the ages of 6 and 10 years with a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than the 95th percentile will continue to be obese in their adult life [7]. In addition, conditions such as type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypercholesterolemia and hypertension, which were previously s