Obesity among children in Delhi alarmingly on rise--study

Besides the national capital, other cities in the survey included Mumbai, Jaipur, Agra, and Dehradun.

However, after analyzing the data, researchers found that every third child studying in a private school in the capital is obese, in comparison to other urban cities.

Another trend noticed by study researchers was that the incidences of obesity among
children studying in private school was significantly higher in comparison to children studying in government schools.

While commenting on the worrisome study findings, Dr Anoop Misra, director and head, department of diabetes and metabolic diseases at Fortis hospitals in Delhi and also the chairman of N-DOC, said in a press statement on Friday, “Obesity is increasing among school children (14-18 years). Over a three-year period, it has increased significantly from 9.8 per cent to 11.7 per cent.”

Research findings
Study researchers surveyed 19000 school children in Delhi to measure the obesity rate.
Out of all, 13000 children were studying in private schools, while 6000 were from government schools.

Researchers found that 32.6 percent children from private schools were obese. Amazingly, only 9.6 percent students were found to be obese in government schools.

In the survey, Mumbai ranked second with 30.4 percent children from private schools and 7.9 percent from government schools found to be obese.

“The prevalence of obesity in private schools has shot up from 11.6% to 17%," noted the authors of the study.

Researchers also stated that the primary reason behind rise in obesity among children is an imbalanced diet. Children are more interested in eating junk food than healthy homemade food.

One in every three children eats out at least once in a week and this tendency to eat junk food was found among both private and government school students.

Risk of lifestyle related disease
As per Dr. Misra, the situation is grave as obese children are more at risk of falling prey to life-style related disease such as diabetes, and heart-ailments early in their lives.

"About 70% to 80% of these schoolchildren are likely to remain obese till they are adults. There are chances that these children may get diabetes in their late 20s or 30s," revealed Misra.

He added, “Nutrition transition is responsible for causing obesity and other diet-related non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and cardiovascular disease."

Misra believes that the problem can be tackled if parents start paying more attention to what their wards are eating and encourage them to eat healthy food.