Original Article

Relation of Family, Daily Habits with the Development of Obesity in the Obese Children

Young Mi Hong
Author Information & Copyright
Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Korea.
Corresponding author (ymhong@ewha.ac.kr)

Copyright ⓒ 2010. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Sep 30, 2010

Abstract

Purpose

Obesity, the most common health problem facing children, is known to have been ascribed to multifactors. Our research is aimed at finding out if there exists any relation of children's obesity with their family and also with their daily habits.

Materials and Methods

The study included 145 obese children and 44 non-obese children, who visited our pediatric clinic from January 2006 to December 2008. The children were divided into three groups according to body mass index(BMI)(group I:non-obese control children, group II:children with BMI between 85 and 94 percentile, group III:children with BMI above 95 percentile). Research was performed in three groups by measuring of body weight, height and questionnaires.

Results

There was no significant difference in sex and age. The parental BMI of the obese children were higher than those of non-obese children. Obesity of children was more highly related to maternal BMI than partenal BMI. Birth weight and birth order in the obese children showed no remarkable difference from those of non-obese children. The sleeping hours of the obese children were much longer than those of non-obese children. Television viewing hours of the obese children showed no remarkable difference from those of non-obese children. Family members with group III children had many complications which developed from obesity.

Conclusion

The development of obesity in children is attributed to the hereditary factors of their parents and daily habits such as sleeping hours. Therefore, family-based weight control is important to treat childhood obesity.

Keywords: Obesity; Children; Family daily habits