Inadequate sleep, reduced physical activity and increased screen time responsible for obesity in children

Obesity is a pandemic, spread throughout world and is attributing largely to industrialisation with reduced physical activity, increased screen timings and lack of adequate sleep. Overweight and obese children from affluent class schools were screened, their sleeping pattern, screen time and outdoor and indoor gaming time was studied. Two thousand four hundred and ninety nine children were screened for overweight and obesity on the basis of BMI cut-off given by IOTF. Children were categorized as normal (57.94%) overweight (20.89 %) and obese (5.20%). Based on WHR classification more than 85% girls were categorized as ‘at risk’ and 27.27 % boys were ‘at risk’. Overweight and obese children’s screen time was more than 1.5 hours/day and had a sleep of less than 8 hours per day. A strong association was found among the environmental factors like weight, diet (milk and energy intake), sedentary life style, total energy expenditure, basal metabolic rate and the time spent in front of computer playing games.