Prevalence of overweight and obesity in urban and semi‐urban Jordanian children aged 3–6 years

OBJECTIVES: To show the prevalence of overweight and obesity among the Jordanian urban and semi-urban children; to compare their body mass index (BMI) with the international standards of BMI. METHODS: We measured 1695 healthy children (842 boys and 853 girls) between 3 and 6 years for height, weight and mid upper arm circumference. BMI was calculated and transformed into percentiles. Children were divided into boys and girls. RESULTS: The mean and SD values of BMI observed in our study were 16.69 +/- 4.9 kg/m(2) for boys and 16.82 +/- 4.77 kg/m(2) for girls aged 3-6 years. The prevalence of obesity and overweight among boys was 20.8% and 3.8% respectively and among girls was 19.1% and 7.2% respectively. In total, 48.0% of boys and 38.1% of girls were of healthy weight. CONCLUSIONS: The mean BMI observed in our study's children aged 3-6 years was higher than the expected 50th percentile of the (World Health Organization/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) reference values for a similar age range but, it was equivalent to the 75th percentile values. Obesity was more frequent than overweight among boys and girls aged 3-6 years.