Original paper
Overweight and Obesity among Adolescents in Bahrain
Bader, Zahra; Musaiger, Abdulrahman O.; Al-Roomi, Khaldoon; D'Souza, Reshma
Anthropologischer Anzeiger Volume 66 No. 4 (2008), p. 401 - 407
29 references
published: Dec 19, 2008
published online: May 29, 2019
ArtNo. ESP140006604005, Price: 29.00 €
Abstract
A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the prevalence of overweight and obesity amongst adolescents in Bahrain. The subjects consisted of grades 1-3 secondary school students (336 males and 396 females) between the ages 15-18 years, selected using a multi-stage stratified random sampling technique from government schools from all the governrates of Bahrain, representing about 3 % of the target population. The mean height in males and females ranged between 162.9-171.3 cm and 157.4-159.9 cm, respectively, while the mean weight ranged between 59-72 kg and 59-66 kg, respectively. The proportion of those underweight was higher in males (8.6 %) compared to that in females (2.3 %). The highest proportion of normal weight was observed at the age of 15 years in both the male and female adolescents (66.0 %). The prevalence of overweight and obesity was higher in female (17.4% and 19.4 %) compared to the male (15.8 % and 13.7 %) adolescents. Although compared to previous reports, a decline in the body mass index (BMI) was observed for both the genders in Bahrain. We believe that the launch of intervention programs at a national level to educate school authorities, parents and concerned health professionals alike, is urgently required.
Keywords
Bahrain • adolescents • body mass index • overweight • obesity