By Oly-alawuba Nkeiruka
The study assessed the prevalence of overweight and obesity and influence of exercise on the weight of children aged 6 -12 years living in rural and urban communities of Enugu South Local Government Area of Enugu State, Nigeria. A multistage stratified random sampling technique was used in selecting 10 schools and 2,000 children used for the study. One thousand subjects each were selected randomly from the urban and rural schools, respectively. This was done by picking two hundred subjects comprising of boys and girls within the ages 6-12 years from each of the ten schools, by way of balloting without replacement. A structured questionnaire was used to collect information on the personal data, family background, parents’ socio-demographic status, physical activity pattern of the family, monthly income range of the parents, health history and socio demographic characteristics of the children. Anthropometric measurements of weight, height and triceps were done in both the urban and rural schools, respectively. Physical exercise and weighed food intake were carried out on a subsample of thirty (30) obese children and the data was compared with a control group that was not receiving any exercise. The physical exercise was conducted for a period of two months using standard equipment under the guidance of well-trained sport experts, at a recognized sports centre (Liberty centre) in Enugu, Enugu State, Nigeria. The energy expenditure and the mean weight loss of the children were calculated. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 15 was used to analyze the data. Information from the questionnaires, physical exercise and weighed food intake were analyzed using frequencies and percentages and categorized using World Health Organization (WHO) anthro software. Comparison was done using chi square test for categorized variables while ANOVA was used to analyze continuous variables. Anthropometric result showed that prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity in the Enugu South Local Government Area of Enugu State was 10.3% and 6.0%, respectively. The urban children had the highest obesity prevalence of 9.2% and the rural counterparts had 2.9%. Obesity was more among the male children (4.6%) than in the females (1.5%) and overweight was more among the male children (6.25%) relative to the females (4.0%). The children who occupy the first position in the family had the highest prevalence of overweight (42.0%). Children whose parents monthly income was N46,000 and above showed higher prevalence of overweight and obesity (31.2% and 22.3%) than those whose parents monthly income was less than N7,500 (8.9% overweight and 13.2% obese) respectively. A greater number of urban children (25.7%) view television for more than two hours per day than the rural children (18.6%). Result on physical exercise showed a significant weight loss by the children, initial mean weight was 59.05kg and final mean weight was 49.23kg, the mean weight loss was 9.52kg. The male children spent significantly longer (p < 0.05) total time (46hours, 407minutes) relative to the female (45hours, 303minutes) on exercises. The body mass index (BMI) distribution of the children after the exercise activity showed that 46.7% of the intervention group were obese, 53.3% were overweight and in the control group, 96.7% were obese and 3.3% were overweight. The weighed food intake result showed that 6-12 year old male children met the recommended intake for energy (117.86%), protein (179.5%), calcium (300.68), riboflavin (171.11%), and niacin (108.92%). Conclusive evidence has shown that high energy physical exercise had a positive impact on the obese children in terms of weight loss.