Prevalence of Obesity in School Children and Its Link to Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

Type 2 DM is being seen more commonly in the pediatric population. This observed increase is thought to be caused by social factors that lead to sedentary life style and increase prevalence of obesity. Children are frequently a symptomatic at the time of diagnosis so screening for this disorder in high - risk population is important.

Screening should be considered for children of high risk ethnic population with a strong family history of type 2 DM with obesity or signs of hyperinsulinism such as acanthosis mgncans.

This work was designed to detect the prevalence of obesity among preparatory and secondary school children and to screen for type 2 DM in those children.

In order to achieve the goal of this work, 10.000 school children and adolescents from preparatory and secondary schools in Cairo were screened for obesity during the period from 3/99 to 4/2001.

They were 3732 males (37.33%) and 6268 females (62.67%), their ages ranged from 11-18 years with a mean age of 14.4 years ±1.72..

Age recording and weight and height measurements • were done for all of them to identify obese subjects (BMI >95 percentile for age and sex).