Hospital-Based Overweight and Obesity Among Saudi Children Aged 4-14 Years

A cross-sectional hospital-based survey was conducted to find out the magnitude of overweight and obesity health problem among Saudi children aged 4-14 years. The partici-pants were 303 Saudi children who were admitted in three hospitals in Makkah for reasons other than obesity complica-tions. Weight and height were measured in a standardized way. Body mass index was calculated and the percentiles. Overweight and obesity was defined as BMI !85-95 and !95% respectively. The obese and overweight of the studied children represented 22.4% and 20.1% respectively. Among the obese children 61.2% aged 4-7 years and 35.3% were female kids. There was a positive correlation between BMI and age. The magnitude of the obesity health problem is high among Saudi children who were admitted to hospitals for problems other than obesity complications. There is a need to develop a hospital- based interventional program to take in consideration dealing with obesity problem among the admitted children.