The association between self perceptions of psychological well-being and overweight in Brazilian children

Abstract

Our objective was to estimate the prevalence and test the association between psychological well-being and overweight in children. We conducted a cross-sectional study using anthropometrical measures and interviews with 1048 6-10-year-old school children from a Brazilian town. Overweight was assessed by the body mass index and included obesity. Psychological data of children and their parents were collected using a face scale. Poisson regression models were used to test the associations and to obtain unadjusted and adjusted prevalence ratios (PR). The prevalence of overweight was of 15.3% (95% CI: 13.2-17.6) and of only obesity was 3.8% (2.8-5.2). After controlling for age, sex, school type and parental overweight, the prevalence of overweight was 52% and 44% higher in children who reported a psychological dissatisfaction in themselves and in their mothers when compared with those with positive self perception (PR=1.52 95% CI=1.02-2.28; P=0.038) and (PR=1.44 95% CI=1.00-2.09; P=0.049), respectively. The study suggests that actions aiming weight control of children should take into account psychological aspects of children and their families. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.