Department of Nursing, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA.
Department of Rehabilitation and Movement Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA.
Public Health Nurs. 2020 Sep;37(5):655-662. doi: 10.1111/phn.12773. Epub 2020 Jul 20.
To objectively determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity in elementary school children in two rural counties in Vermont prior to implementing a community-based intervention.
School-based objective measures of body mass index (BMI) were obtained from 1,688 public school children in first, third, and fifth grades in two Northern Vermont counties in the Fall of 2017.
Forty-one percentage of elementary school children were either overweight or obese, nearly double the estimated Vermont prevalence rate of 22.2%. Schools located in more rural areas showed higher levels of overweight and obesity in children than schools in less rural areas in these northern counties (p < .005).
Indirect and self-reported measures of BMI may be underestimating the true prevalence of overweight and obesity particularly in more rural communities.
Data presented here in which children were measured directly by trained study staff demonstrate that the prevalence of obesity among children in elementary school is alarmingly high. Accurate, ongoing BMI measurement surveillance is one tool to better understand both the current trends in childhood overweight and obesity and the effect of community and state interventions.
在实施基于社区的干预措施之前，客观地确定佛蒙特州两个农村县小学生超重和肥胖的流行率。
2017 年秋季，从佛蒙特州北部两个县的两所公立学校的一、三、五年级的 1688 名学生中获得了基于学校的身体质量指数（BMI）的客观测量值。
41%的小学生超重或肥胖，几乎是佛蒙特州估计的 22.2%超重率的两倍。与农村地区的学校相比，在这些北部县，农村地区学校的儿童超重和肥胖水平更高（p<.005）。
间接和自我报告的 BMI 测量值可能低估了超重和肥胖的真实流行率，尤其是在更农村的社区。
此处提供的儿童由经过培训的研究人员直接测量的数据表明，小学儿童肥胖的流行率高得惊人。准确的、持续的 BMI 测量监测是一种工具，可以更好地了解儿童超重和肥胖的当前趋势，以及社区和州干预措施的效果。
