Objectives:
to estimate the prevalence of overweight/obesity and to investigate the association between nutritional status of the mother, socio-demo-graphic factors, frequency and location of and company during meals and overweight/obesity in schoolchildren aged between 11 and 14 years in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina.
Methods:
a cross-sectional study was carried out with 962 adolescents attending public and private schools. Overweight/obesity was defined according to the World Health Organization criteria. The indepen-dent variables were: school network, sex of school-child, level of schooling and nutritional status of mother, monthly household income, frequency and location of and company during meals. Raw and adjusted analyses were conducted using the Poisson regression to estimate prevalence rates with confi-dence intervals of 95%.
Results:
the prevalence of overweight/obesity was 29.8% (CI95%: 25.7-33.9), 11.6% for obesity and 18.3% for overweight. Among students in the public network, overweight/obesity was associated with overweight/obesity in the mother, more breakfasts, having lunch at school or in another location, and having breakfast with others, while, among private network students, it was associated only with overweight/obesity in the mother.
Conclusions:
Conclusions: the high prevalence of overweight/obesity, both in the public and the private network, demonstrates the need to pay more attention to the associated factors, such as overweight/obesity in the mother, frequency and location of and company during meals.
Adolescent; Overweight; Obesity; Food consumption; Meals