Does the Way Children Travelled to School Affect the Body Fat Levels? A Study

Abstract

Prevalence of obesity has increased significantly in the last two or three decades worldwide. The prevalence statistics shows that obesity pandemic is all-pervading even in the developing nations like India. In the present study an effort has been made to report the prevalence of obesity on the basis of body fat percent among school girls of Punjab, total 6000 students were selected with stratified random sampling technique, (2000 each from high, middle & low economic status) ranging in age from 10-17 years. Height and weight were measured in all participants and the body fat percent (BF %) of everyone was calculated. Body fat percent classes based on mode of conveyance (walking/bicycle & vehicle) (under fat, healthy fat, over fat & obese) were calculated according to the body fat percent cut offs lines by the manual of bio electrical impedance machine with scale HBF-361. The observations revealed that the overall mean value of walking/bicycle & vehicle was 18.55%, 26.04% respectively. The observations also revealed that the overall prevalence of under fat, healthy fat, over fat and obesity was 7.3%, 78.7%, 11.3% and 2.6% respectively. The total no. of 3222 subjects were taken as subjects which were coming to school by walking/bicycle and their body fat % category is under fat (13.5%), healthy fat (86.2%), over fat (.2%) & obesity (.0%) respectively. Whereas in the case of those girls which are coming to school by vehicle a total of 2778 school girls were taken and their body fat % category is under fat (.1%), healthy fat (70.1%), over fat (24.1%) & obesity (5.7%). Overweight was more prevalent among those girl students who came to school by using vehicle as a mode of conveyance.