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The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access originally published online on October 30, 2007
The European Journal of Public Health 2008 18(2):126-130; doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckm099
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© 2007. The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Nutrition, Physical Activity and Overweight

Differences in prevalence of overweight and stunting in 11-year olds across Europe: The Pro Children Study

Agneta Yngve1, Ilse De Bourdeaudhuij2, Alexandra Wolf3, Andrej Grjibovski1,4, Johannes Brug5, Pernille Due6, Bettina Ehrenblad1, Ibrahim Elmadfa7, Bela Franchini8, Knut-Inge Klepp9, Eric Poortvliet1, Mette Rasmussen6, Inga Thorsdottir10 and Carmen Perez Rodrigo11

1 Unit for Preventive Nutrition, Department of Biosciences at Novum, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
2 Department of Movement and Sport Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
3 Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, Vienna, Austria
4 Division of Epidemiology, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
5 VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
6 Department of Social Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
7 Institute for Nutritional Sciences, University of Vienna, Austria
8 Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal
9 Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway
10 Unit for Nutrition Research, Landspitali University Hospital, Reykjavik, Iceland
11 Community Nutrition Unit, Bilbao, Spain

Correspondence: Agneta Yngve, Unit for Preventive Nutrition, Department of Biosciences at Novum, SE 141 57 Huddinge, Sweden, tel: +46 8 608 9209, fax: +46 8 608 3350, e-mail: agneta.yngve{at}prevnut.ki.se

Received September 13, 2007 , accepted September 25, 2007

Objectives: To assess country differences in prevalence of overweight, obesity, underweight and stunting in the Pro Children Survey. Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted in a random sample of schools in nine European countries in 2003. The subjects were 8317 11-year-old children from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. Parents reported height and weight of the children, and BMI values were analysed using the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and the International Obesity Task Force reference populations. Continuous variables were compared with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Games-Howell post hoc tests. Categorical variables were analysed using chi-square tests. Results: The prevalence of overweight + obesity varied between the countries from 8.6% to 30.6% and 5.9% to 26.5%, respectively, depending on the reference population, with the lowest prevalence in Dutch girls, the highest in Portuguese boys. Obesity prevalence varied from 1.1% (Dutch and Danish girls) to 10.7% (Portuguese boys) and from 0.3% (Dutch girls) to 6.2% (Portuguese boys), respectively. Portugal and Spain had the highest prevalence of overweight and obesity for both genders. The ranking of the countries according to overweight and obesity prevalence was roughly the same, independent of reference population. The prevalence of underweight varied from 2.3% (Swedish boys) to 12.3% (Belgian boys), using the American reference population. The proportion of stunted children was highest in Portugal, Spain and Belgium. Conclusions: The highest levels of overweight, obesity and stunting in the pro children material are found in Portugal and Spain.

Keywords: childhood, Europe, growth, short stature


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