Overweight and obesity prevalence estimates in a population from Zaragoza by using different growth references

Objectives: To investigate the prevalence of overweight and obesity among our pediatric population and observe whether the use of different growth references for classification produce significant differences. Material and methods: A total of 35824 boys and girls aged between 2 and 14 years were included. Body mass index (BMI) was used to calculate the prevalence of overweight-obesity by age and sex. Prevalence was obtained by using a set of national references (Hernandez's standards) and the references of World Health Organization (WHO standards). Prevalences were compared for each age and sex subset, as well as with the percentage of patients who had an overweight-obesity diagnosis in the clinical record. Results: The overall prevalence of overweight-obesity among children aged 2 to 14 years was 17.0% (95% Cl; 16.1%-18.0%) according to the Hernandez standards vs 30.8% (95% CI; 29.9%-31.7%) according to WHO standards (10.1% vs 12.2% obese, and 6.9% vs 18.6% overweight). It was significantly higher in boys, by both standards, due to the higher prevalence of obesity. By using the Hernandez standards the prevalence was significantly lower than by using WHO standards for all ages and for both sexes. A low percentage of patients were found to have an obesity-overweight diagnosis in the clinical record (from 3% to 22% at the ages of 2 and 14 years, respectively). Conclusions: The prevalence of overweight-obesity in our population is high, especially among boys. Using Hernandez standards leads to an under-estimation of the problem, especially because it detects less overweight patients, thus we recommend using the WHO standards in our daily practice. The low number of overweight-obesity diagnoses in the clinical records might reflect that there is little awareness of the problem by the professionals. (C) 2013 Asociacion Espanola de Pediatria. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. All rights reserved.