Prevalence of general and abdominal obesity and its association with socioeconomic variables in Brazilian adolescents from low-income region

de Moraes, Augusto Cesar

Prevalence of general and abdominal obesity and its association with socioeconomic variables in Brazilian adolescents from low-income region

Monday, 18 August 2014

Exhibit hall (Dena'ina Center)

Marcus Vinícius N Ferreira, MS , University of Trás-os-Montes & Alto D'ouro, Vila Real, Portugal

Augusto Cesar F de Moraes, PhD , School of Medicine of the University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Heraclito B Carvalho, PhD , School of Medicine of the University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Luis A Moreno, PhD , School of Medicine of the University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Victor Manuel M dos Reis, PhD , University of Trás-os-Montes & Alto D'ouro, Vila Real, Portugal

Francisco Leonardo Torres-Leal, PhD , Federal University of Piauí, Teresina, Brazil

INTRODUCTION: Studies have shown that obesity is associated with socioeconomic status (SES) in adolescents and this association is dependent of the income region level. The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and to verify its associations with socioeconomic variables in adolescents from low-income region.

METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional study with adolescents (n=1014) of 14-19 years old, conducted in Imperatriz (Maranhão, Brazil), city with Gini Index of 0.56, and selected by stratified systematic sampling. The outcomes of this study are obesity and overweight (measured by BMI), and abdominal obesity (measured waist circumference). The socioeconomic variables analyzed were: family socioeconomic status (SES), education level of the family's head and nature of school. The analyses were adjusted for confounding variables: gender, age and physical activity (≥ 60 min/d). Prevalence estimates were performed and prevalence ratios (PR) were calculated with confidence intervals of 95%, the associations were verified by Poisson regression.

RESULTS: The prevalence of obesity was 3.8%, overweight 13.1% and abdominal obesity 22.7%. In boys, high SES showed positive association with: overweight PR=5.41 (CI95%: 0.75-38.88), obesity PR=4.77 (CI95%: 0.35-64.56) and abdominal obesity PR=2,27 (CI95%: 0.76-6.78), in comparison with the peers of lower SES. The other expositions factors were not significant statistics.

CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of general and abdominal obesity is high among adolescents residents in low-income region. Boys coming from high SES family, are more prone to present general and abdominal obesity.