title: Prevalence and determinants of obesity in children in public schools of Sintra, Portugal.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the prevalence of and the factors related to overweight and obesity in a sample of children from the region of Sintra, Portugal.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional study, stratified for freguesia with random selection of schools. Height, weight, triceps skinfold, upper arm and waist circumferences were measured, and overweight/obesity defined according to international criteria. Breast-feeding, number of daily meals and parents' height and weight data were also collected.
  
  
  RESULTS
  One thousand two hundred and twenty-five children aged 6-10 years were assessed. Overall prevalence of overweight and obesity was 35.6% (23% overweight and 12.6% obesity). Overweight or obese children had higher triceps skinfold, upper arm circumference, arm muscle area, and waist circumference than their normal weight counterparts (P < 0.001). On multivariate analysis, relatively to a child without obese progenitors, a child with one obese progenitor had an obesity risk multiplied by 2.78 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.76-4.38), while a child with two obese progenitors had a risk multiplied by 6.47 (95% CI: 5.59-16.19). Conversely, being picky was significantly related with a smaller risk of obesity: for boys, odds ratio (OR) = 0.15 (95% CI: 0.04-0.63); for girls, OR = 0.19 (95% CI: 0.06-0.64). Finally, no relationships were found between obesity, birth weight, birth height or breast-feeding.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Prevalence of overweight and obesity are elevated among children of the Sintra region in Portugal compared to most other regions of Europe. The relationship with the parents' nutritional state stresses the need to target families for preventing obesity.
authors.affiliation: Unidade de Nutrição e Metabolismo, Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Lisboa, Portugal.
authors.forename: Raquel J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.forename: Pedro M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Marques-Vidal
mesh_terms: D001132:Arm / Q000473:pathology; D001942:Breast Feeding; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009752:Nutritional Status; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D011174:Portugal / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012885:Skinfold Thickness; D049629:Waist-Hip Ratio