Qatar is joining other countries to mark the World Obesity Day today, encouraging practical solutions to help people achieve and maintain a healthy weight, undertake proper treatment, and reverse the obesity crisis.
Over the last several decades, obesity and asthma prevalence have both increased among children in Qatar, said a study — by the Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) — on the association between body mass index (BMI) and asthma in children aged 5-12 .
“Most epidemiological studies propose that obesity at infancy and early childhood increases the risk of asthma in children. The recently adopted electronic recording system for health care visits in Primary Health Care Corporation of Qatar provided a convenient opportunity to assess the possible link between asthma and obesity in children aged 5-12,” according to the study published in Q-Science Connect by Hamad bin Khalifa University Press.
The case study by Dr Shajitha Thekke Veettil and Dr Ahmed Sameer Alnuaimi was done on electronic health records for children aged 5 to 12 years who visited one of the PHCC health centres during the two years study period between 2016 and 2017.
A total of 9,889 children with a diagnosis of asthma and valid BMI (BMI is a standardised measure for body weight by adjusting it to body height) measurement were included in the cases group and an identical number of children who visited the health centres for other reasons and had valid BMI measurements were randomly enrolled in the control group.
The study showed that obesity was significantly more frequent among asthmatics (24.9%) compared to non-asthmatic controls (17.7%).
Having asthma significantly increased the risk of being obese by 41% in simple analysis, while it was further increased to 70% using complex mathematical modelling (controlling for the possible effect of age, gender and nationality on the association between obesity and asthma).
In conclusion, the current observational study based on a large sample of 5-12 years old children documented a strong association between asthma and obesity.
This positive association between asthma and obesity was stronger among older children and female Qatari children.
To recall, about 43% of the total students who participated in a growth monitoring programme by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) were found to be overweight or obese. While 21.2% were overweight, 21.5% were obese. Combined overweight and obesity prevalence was 44.8% and 40.4% among males and females, respectively, and 45.6% and 40.9% among Qatari and non-Qatari students, respectively.
