title: Call for early prevention: prevalence rates of overweight among Turkish and Moroccan children in The Netherlands.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Monitoring overweight in risk groups is necessary. Our aim is to assess the trend in overweight and obesity in Turkish and Moroccan children in the Netherlands since 1997 and to monitor the levels of lifestyle-related behaviours in 2009.
  
  
  METHODS
  We selected cross-sectional data of Turkish and Moroccan children aged 2-18 years from two national Growth Studies performed in 1997 and 2009 in the Netherlands. Lifestyle-related behaviours were obtained in the 2009 study by questionnaire.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In 2009, 31.9% of Turkish and 26.6% of Moroccan children had overweight, whereas this was, respectively, 26.7% and 19.6% in 1997. Already at 2 years, 21.1% in Turkish and 22.7% in Moroccan children had overweight in 2009. The prevalence of obesity was above 4% from 3 years onwards. High (i.e. ≥ 25%) prevalence rates of unhealthy lifestyle-related behaviours were found for not having breakfast (26-49%) among Turkish and Moroccan adolescent (i.e. 15-18 years) girls, consuming no fruit (29-45%) and watching TV/PC ≥ 2 h (35-72%) among all Turkish and Moroccan adolescents, no walking/cycling to school/day care among preschool children (2-4 years) (28-56%) and adolescents (34-94%), drinking ≥ 2 glasses of sweet beverages (44-74%) and being <1 h physically active (29-65%) among all children.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  An upward trend of overweight and obesity occurred in Turkish and Moroccan children. Already at 2 years of age, one out of five Turkish and Moroccan children had overweight, which calls for early prevention with attention to specific lifestyle-related behaviours.
authors: 1 Department of Life Style, TNO, Leiden, The Netherlands Paula.vanDommelen@tno.nl.
authors: Paula
authors: P
authors: van Dommelen
authors: 2 Department of Child Health, TNO, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors: Yvonne
authors: Y
authors: Schönbeck
authors: 3 EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU Medical Centre Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors: Remy A
authors: RA
authors: HiraSing
authors: 4 Department of Life Style, TNO, Leiden, The Netherlands 5 Department of Methodology and Statistics, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors: Stef
authors: S
authors: van Buuren
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D009018:Morocco / Q000208:ethnology; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D063766:Pediatric Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015995:Prevalence; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014421:Turkey / Q000208:ethnology