title: Modelling the association between weight status and social deprivation in English school children: Can physical activity and fitness affect the relationship?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The association between being overweight/obese and deprivation is a serious concern in English schoolchildren.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To model this association incorporating known confounders and to discover whether physical fitness and physical activity may reduce or eliminate this association.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional data were collected between 2007-2009, from 8053 10-16 year old children from the East-of-England Healthy Heart Study. Weight status was assessed using waist circumference (cm) and body mass (kg). Deprivation was measured using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). Confounding variables used in the proportional, allometric models were hip circumference, stature, age and sex. Children's fitness levels were assessed using predicted VO2max (20-metre shuttle-run test) and physical activity was estimated using the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Adolescents or Children.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A strong association was found between both waist circumference and body mass and the IMD. These associations persisted after controlling for all confounding variables. When the children's physical activity and fitness levels were added to the models, the association was either greatly reduced or, in the case of body mass, absent.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To reduce deprivation inequalities in children's weight-status, health practitioners should focus on increasing physical fitness via physical activity in areas of greater deprivation.
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Education , Health and Wellbeing, University of Wolverhampton , Walsall , UK.
authors.forename: Alan M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Nevill
authors.affiliation: b Faculty of Health and Life Sciences , Coventry University , Coventry, UK , and.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Duncan
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Education , Health and Wellbeing, University of Wolverhampton , Walsall , UK.
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Lahart
authors.affiliation: c School of Biological Sciences, University of Essex , Colchester , UK.
authors.forename: Gavin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sandercock
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001835:Body Weight / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D004739:England; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D010809:Physical Fitness / Q000502:physiology*; D012574:Schools; D012934:Social Isolation; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055105:Waist Circumference / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Aerobic fitness; allometric models; body mass; waist circumference