Author(s):
Buoncristiano, Marta ; Spinelli, Angela ; Williams, Julianne ; Nardone, Paola ; Rito, Ana Isabel ; García‐Solano, Marta ; Grøholt, Else Karin ; Gutiérrez‐González, Enrique ; Klepp, Knut Inge ; Starc, Gregor ; Petrauskienė, Aušra ; Kunešová, Marie ; Hassapidou, Maria ; Pérez‐Farinós, Napoleón ; Pudule, Iveta ; Kelleher, Cecily C. ; Duleva, Vesselka ; Rakovac, Ivo ; Chatterjee, Saion ; Breda, João
Date: 2021
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.18/7948
Origin: Repositório Científico do Instituto Nacional de Saúde
Subject(s): Children; Obesity; Overweight; Prevalence; Temporal Trend; Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative; COSI; World Health Organization; Europe; Estilos de Vida e Impacto na Saúde; Portugal
Description
The Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI) routinely measures height andweight of primary school children aged 6–9 years and calculates overweight andobesity prevalence within the World Health Organization (WHO) European Regionusing a standard methodology. This study examines the trends in the prevalence ofoverweight and obesity from the first round of COSI carried out in 2007/2008 to thelatest of 2015/2017 in 11 European countries in which data were collected for atleast three rounds. In total 303,155 children were measured. In general, the preva-lence of overweight and obesity among boys and girls decreased in countries withhigh prevalence (Southern Europe) and remained stable or slightly increased in North-ern European and Eastern European countries included in the analysis. Among boys, the highest decrease in overweight (including obesity) was observed in Portugal (from40.5% in 2007/2008 to 28.4 in 2015/2017) and in Greece for obesity (from 30.5% in2009/2010 to 21.7% in 2015/2017). Lithuania recorded the strongest increase in theproportion of boys with overweight (from 24.8% to 28.5%) and obesity (from 9.4% to12.2%). The trends were similar for boys and girls in most countries. Several countriesin Europe have successfully implemented policies and interventions to counteract theincrease of overweight and obesity, but there is still much to be done.
