Analyzing the distinguishing factors that affect childhood obesity in South Korea

Abstract

Understanding obesity in children is crucial because it can lead to adulthood obesity and result in fatal chronic diseases. Distinctive factors associated with obesity in adults have been described, but distinctive factors related to children remain unclear. We analyzed the correlation between the percentage of body mass index and lifestyle habits by conducting surveys on physical, nutritional, and psychological factors, and we used annual physical examination data to compare different traits among elementary school students (n = 197) and middle school students (n = 461). Our study revealed that the computing hours in elementary school students with overweight and obesity were significantly correlated with the percentage of body mass index (r = 0.29 on school days and r = 0.35 on days off, all P<0.05). No statistically significant difference was found (all P>0.05) in the computing hours of middle school students with overweight and obesity. Childhood obesity can cause depression and reduce children’s quality of life because of their distorted body perception. In conclusion, physical factors directly affecting childhood obesity and psychological and environmental factors surrounding a child should be considered.

Keywords

screen time / quality of life / eating habits / childhood obesity / percentage of body mass index

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the R&D Program of the Society of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Korean Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (No. NRF-2013M-3C8A2A02078507).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

So Jung Yang, Hun-Sung Kim, and Kun-Ho Yoon declare that they have no conflict of interest. All of the procedures followed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 as revised in 2000. This research was approved by the International Review Board of Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital (No. KIRB-00465-005). Written informed consent was obtained from all of the patients included in the study.

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