Obesi̇ty prevalance in chi̇ldren between 24-60 months old which was followed at the family healthcare center

INTRODUCTION AND AIM: Children who grow up in good health form the basis for societies to have a healthy future. For this reason, the World Health Organization (WHO) considers childhood obesity "one of the most important health problems of the 21st century and an epidemic problem". In our study, anthropometric measurements (Height, Weight, Body Mass index) were evaluated according to three different percentile curves (WHO, CDC, NEYZİ) and the frequency of obesity was calculated in national and international studies in children aged 24-60 months who were followed up in the family health center in the district of Istanbul Avcılar. We aimed to compare and determine the risk factors leading to obesity. METHOD: The research is analytical and cross-sectional. It was held between May-August 2021 with the participation of 281 children and their families. The height and weight measurements of the children were entered into CEDD Çözüm program, and BMI z-scores were calculated according to the WHO, CDC, NEYZİ percentiles. The sociodemographic characteristics of the families, the nutritional and birth characteristics of the child, and the height and weight values of the family members were collected by the researcher in a face-to-face interview through the data collection form. SPSS version 26 was used in the analysis of the data. Categorical variables in our questionnaire and their occurence numbers are shown as frequency values and percentages. Student's t-test was used for independent groups for comparisons. The distirbution of categorical variables according to the gender of the children was evaluated with the Pearson's chi-square test. In our study, the level of significance was taken as 0.05. RESULTS: In 281 Children with a mean age of 41.610.9 months, overweight and obesity prevalance was found at %24,9 NEYZİ, %26,34 CDC, %29,9 WHO percentiles. While BMI has a correlation between Neyzi, CDC, WHO percentiles and z scores, and 0.800-0.980 (p<0.01), there is a correlation between 0-0.20 between the child's height and weight values at birth and the parental variables (BMI, education level, employment status, etc.). very low correlations emerged (p>0.05). According to all three guidelines, there is a moderate relationship between the 12-13 months weight and obesity status of the children in our study and their current obesity values (r values 0.408- 0.521). The correlations between these variables found were statistically significant (p<0.01). In our study, overweight and obesity were found to be higher in girls compared to all three guidelines (p<0.05). The highest rate of obesity in girls was found in the WHO BMI z-scores, with a rate of 15.06%. Likewise, the obesity rate in men was found to be the highest in the WHO BMI z-scores with a rate of 5.9%. CONCLUSION: Obesity prevalence was calculated as 7.83% according to Olcay Neyzi percentile values, and obesity prevalence was found to be the highest in WHO percentiles with a rate of 10.68%. The prevalence of obesity in our study was found to be lower (14%-24%) than in studies conducted in our country, but the sum of being overweight and obese was found to be similar. The high values observed in girls and their female siblings in our study require the development of special applications for girls in the fight against obesity, and we can only detect and manage obesity, which has an increasing frequency in our country, by creating our own database and using percentile curves suitable for our society. Keywords: obesity, child, BMI, Neyzi, CDC, WHO