Poster Presentation Australian & New Zealand Obesity Society Annual Scientific Meeting 2013

Prevalance of Obesity and Overweight in 4-5 year old Children in New Zealand: Descriptive Analysis of Body Mass Index Measurements from the National Before School Check (B4SC) Programme (#190)

Nitin Rajput 1 , Pat Tuohy 1
  1. Ministry of Health, Wellington, New Zealand

Background / Objectives:  Worldwide 40 million children under the age of 5 years are overweight or obese. Preschool obesity has significant public health and long-term health implications. We describe the prevalence of overweight and obesity in 4-5 year old children in New Zealand using Body Mass Index (BMI) measurements between 2009 and 2012 from the national Before School Check programme (B4SC)1 .

Methods: Height, Weight and BMI were analysed using LMS plugin for Microsoft Excel2,3 . Overweight and obesity rates were defined using numerical cut-offs for BMI on the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF2012)4 cut-offs and 85th and 95th centiles for BMI on the World Health Organisation – Child Growth Standards (WHO2006)5, Centre for Disease Control (CDC2000)6 and British (UK1990)7 reference standards for growth.  

Results: Overall mean BMI across the B4SC duration (2009-2012) was 16.44 [95% Confidence Intervals (CI) - 16.43 – 16.45] Kg/m2 in boys and 16.30 (95% CI - 16.29 – 16.31) Kg/m2 in girls. Mean BMI z-score (WHO2006 reference standards) was 0.785 (95% CI - 0.778 – 0.792) in boys and 0.601 (95% CI – 0.594 – 0.608) in girls. Combined obesity rates (2009-2012) for all children (boys and girls) were 5.2% (95% CI – 5.1 – 5.3%) for IOTF2012 cut-offs and 12.0% (95% CI - 11.8 – 12.2%) for UK1990, 14.0% (95% CI – 13.9 – 14.2%) for CDC2000, and 16.3% (95% CI – 16.1 – 16.5%) for WHO2006 reference standards. Combined overweight rates were 17.2% (17.0 – 17.4%) for IOTF2012 cut-offs and 15.2% (15.0 – 15.3%) for UK1990, 19.3% (19.1 – 19.5%) for CDC2000 and 18.3% (18.1 – 18.5 %) for WHO 2006 reference standards.

Conclusions: The study reaffirms the high prevalence of overweight and obesity in preschool children in New Zealand, and also describes the variation between internationally recommended reference standards. 

  1. Ministry of Health New Zealand. B4 School Check information for the health sector 2011 [cited April 3rd, 2013.]. Available from: http://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/life-stages/child-health/b4-school-check/b4-school-check-information-health-sector.
  2. Cole TJ. The LMS method for constructing normalized growth standards. European journal of clinical nutrition. 1990 Jan;44(1):45-60.
  3. Harlow Healthcare United Kingdom, South Shields, LMS Growth. [cited 2013 3rd April ]. Available from: http://www.healthforallchildren.co.uk/pro.epl?DO=USERPAGE&PAGE=lmsdownload.
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  5. WHO Child Growth Standards based on length/height, weight and age. Acta Paediatr Suppl. 2006 Apr;450:76-85.
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