Al-Thani Mohammed H, Alyafei Salah A, Al-Mutawa Kholoud A, Khalifa Shamseldin A H, Mishra Amit, Poovelil Benjamin V, Abdellatif Azza A, Toumi Amine A, Kokku Suresh B
Public Health Department Ministry of Public Health Doha Qatar.
Public Health Chall. 2023 Jan 12;2(1):e52. doi: 10.1002/puh2.52. eCollection 2023 Mar.
Growth monitoring surveys provide critical anthropometric data to monitor physical growth and various forms of malnutrition among school age children. In the beginning, growth monitoring programs were introduced to identify the extent of undernutrition among children, which were later considered equally useful in the identification of overweight and obesity among school age children. Observing the shifts in weight categories among school age children provides an important insight to design targeted interventions for improving growth and development of children.
The study used growth monitoring survey data among 5-19-year school children of two academic years (2016-17 and 2019-20) in Qatar where 2016-17 survey included 186,986 students, whereas 2019-20 survey included 215,279 students. A total of 7514 unique records of students aged 5-14 years available in both survey rounds were included in the final analysis. This study documented shift in BMI--scores to ascertain the movement of students among obese, overweight, normal, thinness, and severe thinness categories. Python version 3.9.5 was used for data analysis along with a pairwise comparison between each of BMI--score shift to evaluate the effects of specific shifts in BMI--score category.
Overall, the proportion of overweight and obese category of students increased from 44% in 2016-17 to 49.3% in 2019-20 with a decrease in the proportion of students in normal BMI--score category (from 48.8% to 47.8%) and severe thinness and thinness category (from 7.3% to 3%) between two rounds of growth monitoring survey. Statistically significant shifts in BMI--score categories were noted for students of different age groups, gender, and nationality.
Shift from normal BMI--score to obese and overweight category is a cause of concern and an opportunity to develop appropriate interventions. The significant shift among different categories needs to be investigated further to identify associated reasons to effectively develop interventions.
生长监测调查提供关键的人体测量数据，以监测学龄儿童的身体生长情况和各种形式的营养不良。起初，引入生长监测计划是为了确定儿童营养不良的程度，后来发现其在识别学龄儿童超重和肥胖方面同样有用。观察学龄儿童体重类别变化，为设计针对性干预措施以促进儿童生长发育提供了重要依据。
该研究使用了卡塔尔两个学年（2016 - 17年和2019 - 20年）5至19岁学龄儿童的生长监测调查数据。2016 - 17年的调查涵盖186,986名学生，而2019 - 20年的调查涵盖215,279名学生。最终分析纳入了两轮调查中共有7514条5至14岁学生的唯一记录。本研究记录了BMI评分的变化，以确定学生在肥胖、超重、正常、消瘦和严重消瘦类别之间的变动情况。使用Python 3.9.5版本进行数据分析，并对每个BMI评分变化进行成对比较，以评估BMI评分类别特定变化的影响。
总体而言，超重和肥胖类别的学生比例从2016 - 17年的44%增至2019 - 20年的49.3%，正常BMI评分类别的学生比例（从48.8%降至47.8%）以及严重消瘦和消瘦类别的学生比例（从7.3%降至3%）在两轮生长监测调查之间有所下降。不同年龄组、性别和国籍的学生在BMI评分类别上有统计学意义的变化。
从正常BMI评分向肥胖和超重类别的转变令人担忧，同时也是制定适当干预措施的契机。不同类别之间的显著变化需要进一步调查，以确定相关原因，从而有效地制定干预措施。
