Prevalence of overweight and obesity and status of chronic non- communicable diseases and some related risk factors among Egyptian adolescents

Objectives are to study the current prevalence of overweight and obesity among adolescents in Egypt from 2000 to 2008, to estimate the prevalence of glucose disorders, hypertension, Lipid profile, and metabolic syndrome, and to investigate some related risk factors among 10 to 18 years old school adolescents. For assessing prevalence rates of overweight and obesity among adolescents, data from reports of other cross-sectional studies carried out by NNI (2000-2005) and EDHS, 2008 were compared. To estimate the prevalence of glucose disorders, hypertension, lipid profile, and metabolic syndrome, a randomized stratified cluster-sample of preparatory and secondary school students was used. BMI was calculated and referred to corresponding international reference values for age and sex. A fasting blood sample was drawn to assess lipid profile and fasting plasma insulin. Overweight and obesity are prevalent among Egyptian adolescents of both sexes, and at least for girls the prevalence has increased in the last few years. Pre-diabetic state was present among 16.4% of adolescents. The crude prevalence of hypertension is 1.4% The overall proportion of adolescents with high total cholesterol is 6.0 %; the proportion with high LDL-cholesterol is 7.5 %, with high triglycerides 8.2 %, and with low HDL cholesterol 9.4 %. Conclusions; over