Overweight And Obesity And Children's Learning Achievement And Mental Health Relations Tracking Study

Objects:To investigate the prevalence and influence factors of overweight and obesity in children of Taiyuan. To explore the relationship among overweight and obesity, learning achievement and mental health. To discover the main mental problem of overweight and obese children. To study the effects of the changes of children’s BMI (body mass index) group on children’s learning achievement and mental health. In order to provide a reference for the intervention.Methods:A total of 1582 grade 3 students from 5 elementary schools in Taiyuan were selected by a random cluster sampling method. After the unification trains the investigators take each class as a unit to carry on investigating. Request to fill in the children’s questionnaire independently and took back it at that time. Explain the purpose of this survey to children before the investigation, in order to guarantee the authenticity and reliability of the questionnaires. Parents fill in the parent questionnaires according to the actual situation, the investigators guide them by telephone. Recover unifiedly the terminative questionnaires under the teachers’help. Children’s learning achievement provided by headteacher. Children’s height and weight measured by physicians according to the requirements and methods of the national primary and secondary school physical research. Calculate the body mass index by the formula of weight/height2. Adopt WGOC standard divide the children into normal, overweight and obesity three group. Use the EpiData 3.1 input data, use the SPSS 13.0 software establishment database and carry on statistics processing.Results;1. Cross-sectional study(1) The prevalence rate of overweight and obesity in children of cross-sectional study were 11.5%and 9.4%. The incorporate prevalence rate of overweight and obesity was 20.9%. The prevalence rate of overweight and obesity was significantly higher in boys and single-child relative to girls and multiple-child respectively.(2) The learning achievement of obese children was significantly lower than normal children, especially in math achievement. The impact of obesity on the learning achievement of boys was more prominent.(3) The mental health of obese children was significantly lower than normal children, especially in body-brain coordination, environment adaptation, learning habit, learning dimension, interpersonal self, independence, self-care and adaptation dimension. The impact of obesity on the mental health of boys was more prominent.(4) Ordinal logistic regression analysis showed that the main influence factors of overweight and obesity were gender, single-child, parents’BMI, mother’s educational level, times of watching television and birth weight.(5) There were negative associations between children’s BMI group and children’s learning achievement, and between children’s BMI group and children’s mental health. By contrast, there was a positive association between children’s learning achievement and children’s mental health.(6) Multiple stepwise regression analysis showed that learning dimension scores, father’s educational level and mother’s educational level were the main influence factors of children’s learning achievement, and mother’s educational level, gender and children’s BMI group were the main influence factors of children’s mental health.2. Follow-up study(1) The prevalence rate of overweight and obesity in children of follow-up study were 12.4%and 10.2%, increase 0.9 and 0.8 percentage points compared with 2010. The incorporate prevalence rate of overweight and obesity was 22.6%. The prevalence rate of overweight and obesity was significantly higher in boys and single-child relative to girls and multiple-child respectively.(2) The learning achievement of obese children was significantly lower than normal children, especially in math achievement.(3) The mental health of obese children was significantly lower than normal children, especially in body-brain coordination, learning habit, learning dimension, interpersonal self, independence and self-care.(4) The trends of mental health in children whose BMI group did not change from 2010 to 2011:in normal group, the score of self-satisfaction, identity, teamwork, independence, interpersonal dimension and self-care increased, and the score of environment adaptation, social self and self dimension reduced; the score of self-satisfaction, learning dimension, identity and teamwork increased in overweight group; the score of self-satisfaction, learning dimension, body-brain coordination and identity increased in obese group.(5) The trends of mental health in children whose BMI group changed from 2010 to 2011: from normal group to obese group, the score of body-brain coordination, learning habit, learning dimension, family self, independence, interpersonal dimension and mental health reduced; from overweight group to obese group, the score of body-brain coordination, learning habit, learning dimension, family self, emotional self, self dimension and mental health reduced; from obese group to overweight group, the score of learning dimension, emotional self, interpersonal self, self dimension and mental health incresed.Conclusion:1. The prevalence rate of overweight and obesity in children of Taiyuan was higher, and had a rising trend. The prevalence rate of overweight and obesity was significantly higher in boys and single-child relative to girls and multiple-child respectively. It must be concerned by the parent, the school and the social.2. The effect of obesity on children’s learning achievement and mental health was greater, especially in boys. Parents and teachers should pay more attention to obese children, especially in learning achievement and mental health of obese boys.3. Overweight and obesity in children were influenced by many factors. It need comprehensive intervention.4. There was a close relationship among children’s BMI group, children’s learning achievement and children’s mental health. The impact of obesity on children’s mental health was reversible.