Analysis of the level of overweight and obesity in elementary school students

The objective of this study was to analyze the prevalence of overweight and obesity in school children 6 to 12 years. Participated in the research 378 children, 198 boys and 180 girls enrolled in primary education. Values were collected regarding age, body mass, height, triceps skinfold and subscapular. Tests were performed descriptive analysis for the classification of the percentage of fat according to gender and age, analysis of variance to detect whether there are significant differences in percentage of body fat (% BF) between the sexes and within the age groups. The results showed that the prevalence of overweight and obesity has reached 24.1% of survey respondents, and 14.3% correspond to the degree of overweight and obesity among boys and 9.8% of the girls. All age groups showed high levels of overweight and obesity; however, it has been observed that with increasing age there is a considerable increase of these levels.