A Comprehensive Review on Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity among School Going Children of Pakistan
Keywords:
Obesity, Overweight, Pakistan, PrevalenceAbstract
Background
Obesity has become a global epidemic affecting health and healthcare costs, increasing dramatically over the past three decades. Childhood obesity is also a growing problem and is defined differently by organizations such as the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) and the CDC. Lifestyle changes, including poor nutrition and decreased physical activity, can increase obesity. Obesity increases the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, highlighting the urgent need for effective management strategies. Hence, the current review is aimed to identify the prevalence of childhood obesity in Pakistan.
Methodology
Two independent researchers with the keywords performed a comprehensive review search; 'Obesity', 'overweight', 'Pakistan' and 'prevalence' on Scopus, CINAHL, Google Scholar, and PubMed. All studies that assessed childhood obesity were included in this review. The outcome measure was the prevalence of obesity, which was measured via the Body Mass Index.
Results
Seven articles from 2013 to 2024 were included in this review, clearing the selection criteria. The findings reported a prevalence of 5.4%, 0.89%, 10.8%, 5.0%, 15.2%, 44.7%, and 15% among seven reported studies.
Conclusion
Obesity, a significant public health problem, continues to be a matter of debate all over the world in recent years. The prevalence of obesity in Pakistan varies with reported prevalence in rural and urban Pakistan.
Keywords
Obesity, Overweight, Pakistan, Prevalence.
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Copyright (c) 2023 Dr. Abdul Sattar Chandio, Dr. Nazir Ahmed Rind, Dr. Imtiaz Khuwaja, Dr. Ayaz Latif
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
