Temporal variation in the incidence of overweight and abdominal obesity among adolescents in the city of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

The scope of this study was to analyze the temporal variation in the incidence of overweight and abdominal obesity among adolescents from public schools in a capital in northeastern Brazil. It is a study including information from three cross-sectional surveys carried out in 2001, 2009 and 2017, with 2,496 students aged 10 to 18 years of both sexes living in the city of Salvador, Bahia. Overweight was assessed using the Body Mass Index for Age (BMI/A) and abdominal obesity was assessed using waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio. Pooled OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) regression, with constant effect, was used to assess the variation of anthropometric indicators over the period. The results of this study indicate that the prevalence of overweight increased by 103% and the indicators of abdominal obesity increased by 153% and 142%, respectively, in the period under analysis. The increase in the mean body mass index and waist-to-height ratio was greater among adolescents and in the mean BMI and waist circumference among those aged 14 to 18 years old. The conclusion reached was that there was a significant increase in the prevalence of overweight and abdominal obesity in the period 2001 to 2017 among adolescents in the city of Salvador.