Metabolic risk factors among 9-12 year old children of cochin

Objectives: To assess the nutritional status of school going children on the basis of anthropometric, biochemical and dietary variables, To estimate the incidence of overweight and obesity, To study the metabolic risk factors in the subjects by weight status. Methods: Sixty three nine to twelve year old children were purposively selected from two urban schools in Ernakulam district, Kerala and based on BMI percentiles the subjects were broadly classified into non overweight and overweight respectively. The subjects were assessed for the risk of the metabolic components proposed by American Dietetic Association (ADA, 2004) and categorized in to normal and high risk respectively. Results: The result of the study reveal that majority of the overweight subjects had increased levels of all investigated risk factors compared to non overweight subjects. Serum insulin and systolic blood pressure show a highly significant correlation (p<0.001) with weight status. The overall metabolic risk of subjects by weight status shows that 66.7 percent of the overweight children had clustering of one or two risk factors of metabolic syndrome when compared to 46.3 percent of non overweight subjects. Conclusions: The frequency of clustering of metabolic risk factors is higher among the overweight subjects compared to their non overweight counterparts.