Prevalence And Risk Factors For Obesity Among School Aged Children In Nairobi Province, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Obesity is a complex condition that is caused by a mixture of medical, psychological and environmental factors. Childhood obesity is characterized by rise in the number of fat cells. It is one of today’s visible yet neglected Public Health problems with serious health implications such as type2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases that affect individuals in all ages and socio-economic groups. This was a crossectional study aimed at investigating the prevalence of obesity and factors that contribute to its occurrence among school-aged children in Nairobi. Objectives of the study were: to establish the prevalence of obesity among school aged-children in Nairobi; to determine the dietary practices of children in the target population; to determine the relationship between dietary practices and obesity; to assess the activity levels of the school aged children. Purposive sampling was used to select the target geographical area, cluster sampling was used to select the eight divisions and gender, simple random sampling was used to identify twenty four schools, stratified sampling was used to select the class levels (1-4) and systematic sampling was used to select the target population (400 pupils). Data were collected by use of Structured questionnaire, anthropometric data sheet and interview schedule. Statistical package for social sciences (version ll), Epi-info, Nutri-Survey were used to analyze data. Pearson’s Product moment correlation and chi-square was used to test the hypotheses. Results from the test indicated that there was a significant relationship between type of school and obesity (x2= 49.626, p0.05), there was a significant relationship between leisure activity and obesity (x2=4.094, p