Iranian Journal of Diabetes and Obesity

en Prevalence of Obesity among Elementary School Students in Yazd in 2016 تخصصي Special نامه به سردبیر Letter to Editor Background: Pediatric obesity is one of the most serious public health problems due to high prevalence and negative outcomes. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of Pediatric overweight and obesity and some associated factors among students of elementary school in Yazd- Iran- 2016. Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, a total of 1253 healthy elementary school students were selected by multistage sampling. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated. The diagnosis of childhood overweight and obesity was based on WHO criteria. The parents of the students had the consent to participate in the study. Data analysis was performed by using SPSS version 16 software. Data were reported as mean ± standard deviation or frequency and analyzed by using chi-square test. P-value less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: In this study 531 (42.4%) were male and 722 (57.6%) were female. In this study 11.5 % of the boys and 10.2 % of the girls were obese. Also, 10.2 % of the boys and 14.8% of the girls were overweight respectively. Relationship between gender and BMI was statistically significant (P< 0.0001). Obesity was more frequent in boys but overweight was more frequent in girls. The relationship between BMI and father's occupation (P= 0.03) and mother's occupation (P= 0.03) and mother's education (P= 0.02) was statistically significant. Conclusion: Due to the high prevalence of obesity and overweight in primary school children, school-based interventions in this age group is necessary.   Pediatric obesity, Overweight, Body mass index 202 204 http://ijdo.ssu.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-30-424&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Mozhgan Modarresi No Department of Community Medicine, Health Monitoring Research Center,School of Medicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. Arezoo Aghakoochak No Health Monitoring Research Center, School of Medicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. Mahmood Vakili No Department of Community Medicine, Health Monitoring Research Center,School of Medicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran Seyed Ali Mahmoodi No Medical Student, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. Akram Ghadiri-Anari 0000-0002-9430-4894 Yes Department of Internal Medicine, Diabetes Research Center, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran.