• Arda Kilinc, Nilgun Col, Beltinge Demircioglu-Kilic, Neriman Aydin, Ayse Balat, and Mehmet Keskin.
• Arda Kilinc, Department of Intensive Care Unit, Ege University, School of Medicine, Izmir, Turkey.
• Pak J Med Sci. 2019 Nov 1; 35 (6): 1652-1658.

ObjectiveTo investigate the prevalence of obesity and associated factors during childhood in Southeastern Turkey. Another objective was to determine the cut-off points of Waist to Height Ratio (WHtR) values for defining obesity/abdominal obesity.MethodsThe community-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Gaziantep Turkey between November 2011 and December 2011 with 2718 primary school/high schools students aged 6-17 years. The SPSS 22.00 was used for the analysis of data.ResultsThe prevalence of overweight, obesity, abdominal obesity, was 13.2%, 4.2% ,26.4%, respectively. There was a reverse relationship between BMI/WC values and sleep durations (p<0.05). The BMI/WC values were higher in students with computer usage time ≥1 hours in a day (p<0.05). Parental obesity status has an effective role on the WC/BMI values of children (p<0.05). The WHtR was a good predictor of diagnosis on obesity and abdominal obesity (AUC=0.928, p<0.0001; AUC=0.920, p<0.0001; respectively). The optimal cut-off values for obesity and abdominal obesity were detected as 0.5077, 0.4741, respectively.ConclusionsThe WHtR can be used for diagnosis of obesity/abdominal obesity. Parental obesity, short sleep duration and computer use more than one hour per day are risk factors for the development of obesity in children and adolescents.Copyright: © Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences.

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