Abstract

Background: Overweight children may become overweight adults, particularly if obesity is present in adolescence. There are very much chances of children to become obese if they have obese parents. Parents can contribute both the genes and eating environment for their children and familial patterns of adiposity because of gene-environment interactions.

Objective: To find out associations between parental and child overweight and obesity.

Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study done in the schools of a city of South India. Children between the ages of 12–15 years were included in the study. During the enrollment, study objectives and methodology were explained to each participant, and written consent was taken.

Result: There was a poor but statistically significant correlation between child’s BMI and father’s BMI (r = 0.226, p = 0.000). Similarly, the correlation between child’s BMI and mother’s BMI was poor but statistically significant (r = 0.252, p = 0.000). Poor but statistically significant correlation was also observed between BMI and waist-to-height ratio (r = 0.189, p = 0.000) and waist–hip ratio (r = 0.127, p = 0.000) of children.

Conclusion: The results of this study may assist to identify those children who have more chances to become overweight and obese in adulthood. Parental overweight or obesity is one of the important factors for the development of obesity in the children. Strategies for prevention of overweight and targeted interventions for prevention of the progression of overweight to obesity are required in school-aged children.

Key words: Obesity, overweight, children, body mass index, parental BMI