Background: Considering that obesity is characterized today as a public health challenge and an epidemic in many countries in the world and that one of the main predictors for obesity is socio-economic status (SES), the aim of this paper was to assess the relationship between the SES of parents/guardians and female adolescent obesity in Montenegro. Methods: A stratified random probability sample method was used, and the number of participants in this study was 596, aged 15.8 ± 0.58, from all three regions in Montenegro. As SES was a factor in this research, specific SES parameters such as household wealth and parental educational level were collected for parent/guardian of each child. The following anthropometric indices were utilized to evaluate nutritional status: body mass index (BMI) and waist to height ratio (WHtR). Results: Regarding nutritional status, it can be said that no statistically significant difference between female adolescents according to the regions of Montenegro was found. Of all the adolescents in the study, 15.4% of them were above the normal nutrition level as measured by BMI, while 12.2% were classified as obese by the WHtR. Furthermore, the study found a significant negative relationship between a mother’s level of education and obesity in female adolescents, with odds ratios of 0.31 (p = 0.035) and 0.19 (p = 0.009) for secondary and high level education, respectively. This suggests that daughters of mothers with higher levels of education are less likely to be obese. Conclusions: In regard to the nutritional status of the respondents in this study, their values fell within the normal range compared to the European average. However, the results regarding the relationship between certain SES characteristics and obesity suggest a similarity to developed countries.
1 January 2022 in International Journal of Morphology
Prevention and correction of overweight in children and adolescents is also very important for many reasons. According to previous research, the problem tends to vary according to sex, and different ages and the lifestyle in rural and urban areas has changed drastically in recent years and decades. Regarding the above-mentioned, the main goal of this research was to determine the nutritional status of young school children in urban and rural areas of Montenegro in relation to sex and age. The sample in this research has consisted of children aged 6 and 9 (younger school age). The total sample in this research is 800 male and female children who belong to the urban and rural areas of Montenegro. The sample of variables used in this study was: body mass index-percentile values (BMI), and waist circumference and body height ratio (WHtR) which were used as indicators to assess nutritional status. Based on obtained results it could be generally concluded that there are no statistically significant differences in nutritional status between primary school children from urban and rural areas of Montenegro, which is the opposite of what was expected based on previous research, but also which is very important since all subjects in the future can be treated as homogeneous groups when it comes to the impact of environment and lifestyle on the nutrition status of younger school children. On the other hand, it is important to emphasize that the main limitation of this research is that measurements were carried out in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the recommendation could be that after the end of the pandemic, special "COVID teams" should be formed, which would consist of experts from various fields of physical culture, sports, and medicine, all with the aim of influencing possible problems with nutritional status and physical activity of young school children caused by a pandemic.