Assessment of Percent Body Fat in Relation to Dietary Practices in Non Obese and Obese School Going Children (5-10 Years) from Hyderabad City, India

Physical activity and food habits play a vital role in determining the nutritional status of an individual. Hence assessing body composition is important to determine health status of a person. The present study was done to assess the nutritional status of school going children by examining the percent body fat and dietary practices.

Methods: School going children 5-10 years (N=850) were enrolled for the study. Anthropometric measurement along with percent body fat was measured by bioelectrical impedance method (Tanita BC581). Through a well-designed food frequency questionnaire frequency of intake of 86 foods items were collected from the mothers who served as respondents for the children. Chi square test was applied to analyze the correlation between the intakes of different foods with the nutritional status of children.

Results:  It was observed that in overweight and obese boys mean percent body fat was in range of 23.9 to 30.8 respectively while it was 16.8 percent in non obese. Similarly, in girls the mean percent body fat was found to be 27.9 percent in overweight, 33.6 percent in obese and 20.4 percent in normal girls. Dietary practices showed that 73 percent of the children were non vegetarians while 26.5 percent were vegetarian. In comparison to normal children 11.9 percent of overweight and 10 percent of obese children consumed non vegetarian foods. Consumption of vegetables was high in normal children compared to obese and overweight children. Consumption of junk food was more in normal children compared to overweight and obese. Negative correlation between consumption of junk food and nutritional status of overweight, obese and normal children was found to be significant (P < 0.01).

Conclusion: More than junk foods physical inactivity due to usage of gadgets and high socio economic status could be the cause for increased percent body fat.