T H E U S E O F A P R E D I C T I O N M O D E L T O P R E V E N T A B N O R M A L W E I G H T I N C H I L D H O O D I N T H E Y O U T H H E A L T H C A R E P R A C T I C E Introduction Obesity in childhood is one of the most challenging diseases to tackle these days. Nowadays it has reached epidemic levels. In 2010, around 43 million children un-‐ der 5 were overweight and obese. The worldwide prevalence of childhood over-‐ weight and obesity increased from 4.2% in 1990 to 6.7% in 2010. This trend is expected to reach 9.1% in 20201. Once obesity has been established, it becomes very difficult to solve this problem. Therefore it is of great importance to develop an instrument to detect the risk of becoming overweight at an early age, before overweight is evident in a child. Espe-‐ cially in children overweight has to be prevented, because overweight and its co-‐ morbidities will be one of the biggest health care problems and costs in the future. Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk for global deaths. In addition, 44% of the diabetes burden, 23% of the ischemic heart disease burden and between 7% and 41% of certain cancer burdens are attributable to overweight and obesity1. Overweight and obesity in childhood and adolescence are associated with increased risk of both premature mortality and adult morbidity, particularly cardio metabolic morbidity2. There are not only severe medical consequences of overweight in childhood; psychosocial problems are probably more prevalent. Childhood over-‐ weight has significant impact on the emotional development of the child and ado-‐ lescent, like suffering from discrimination and stigmatization3. Those children are more prone to be bullied too4. Also the socioeconomic consequences of obesity should not be neglected; Persistent obesity in adulthood in women is associated with poorer employment and relationship5. Nowadays, lots of preventing programs for overweight are developed. Most of these programs are focused on healthy food and drinks, stimulating exercise / physical activity and demoralize inactive living. Most prevention programs are applicable from the age of approximately 2 years. Growth charts are used, internationally, to detect abnormal growth of children. But these charts appear to be inadequate in preventing overweight in children at an early age. Therefore, we created a predic-‐ tion model to detect the tendency of becoming overweight in childhood at a mo-‐ ment overweight has not been established, meant for use in early childhood, in the first year of life. Methods Data for this study were retrospectively collected at the youth health care depart-‐ ment of the Regional Public Health Service South Limburg, Maastricht, the Nether-‐ 91
Proefschrift binnenwerk Manon Ernst_DEF.indd
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