Relationship between obesity and health-related quality of life in children aged 7-8 years.
BACKGROUND
The dramatic increase in the prevalence of obesity in developed and developing countries has become a major health care concern. Accordingly, there is growing recognition of the relationship between health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and obesity in the pediatric population. This study aimed to explore the relationship between HRQOL and different indicators of obesity in children aged 7-8 years.


METHOD
In total, 182 children participated in this study (mean age 7.71 (0.29) years, 48.91% girls). To assess obesity, an InBody 230 analyzer was used to calculate body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage (BFP). The proxy version of the KIDSCREEN-27 questionnaire was used to assess HRQOL.


RESULTS
Among boys, 17.2% were overweight and 4.3% were obese according to BMI, while in terms of body fat percentage (BFP), the corresponding percentages were 12.9 and 9.7%, respectively. Among girls, the prevalence of overweight and obesity was 11.2 and 9.0% by BMI and 10.1 and 7.9% in terms of BFP, respectively. The analysis of BFP showed a significantly higher score in normal weight boys than in obese boys in the Social Support & Peers domains (KW H-test = 10.472, p = 0.03), while in girls, there were no significant differences between weight categories and any HRQOL dimensions.


CONCLUSION
Obesity at 7-8 years of age could negatively affect some HRQOL domains; in particular, obese boys may have low social support and peer functioning.
['Halasi|Szabolcs|S|http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4135-9293', 'Lepeš|Josip|J|', 'Đorđić|Višnja|V|', 'Stevanović|Dejan|D|', 'Ihász|Ferenc|F|', 'Jakšić|Damjan|D|', 'Živković-Vuković|Andrea|A|', 'Cvetković|Milan|M|', 'Milić|Zoran|Z|', 'Stajer|Anita|A|', 'Zrnzević|Nevenka|N|', 'Marinković|Dragan|D|']
D015992:Body Mass Index D002648:Child D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D063766:Pediatric Obesity D015995:Prevalence D011788:Quality of Life D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Obesity Children HRQOL Overweight