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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1454436

Effects of underweight, overweight and obesity on the body growth of preschoolers

Provisionally accepted
Jiebo Chen Jiebo Chen 1Dongmei Luo Dongmei Luo 2*Xue Fan Xue Fan 3*
  • 1 Nantong University, Nantong, China
  • 2 Beijing Sport University, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
  • 3 Anhui University of Technology, Ma'anshan, Anhui Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: This study aimed to investigate the impact of underweight, overweight, and obesity on the growth and development of preschoolers by comparing body shape characteristics across different weight statuses.Methods: A total of 729 preschoolers (5.2  0.83 years, 53.8% boys) from three kindergartens were assessed for 11 different body shape measurements. Two-way ANOVA was employed to examine BMI variations across different ages and sexes. Discriminant analysis was utilized to identify body shape measurements correlated with BMI, and one-way ANOVA was conducted to compare the body shape differences among preschoolers with varying BMI.(1) There was no significant interaction effect of gender and age on BMI (F = 1.602, p = 0.173). Additionally, neither the main effect of age (F = 1.461, p = 0.228) nor the main effect of sex (F = 0.905, p = 0.345) was significant (2) The results of the stepwise discriminant analysis showed that chest circumference, calf length, calf circumference, foot length, and width between greater trochanters entered the discriminant model, with the three discriminant functions explaining 95.8%, 3.1%, and 1.1% of variance, respectively. (3) Compared to their normal-weight counterparts, obese preschoolers displayed significantly larger measurements in chest circumference, width between greater trochanters, calf circumference, calf length, and foot length (p  0.05). Overweight preschoolers also exhibited larger chest and calf circumferences, and width between greater trochanters (p  0.05), while underweight children showed lagging development in various body shape measurements (p  0.05).Conclusion: Variations in BMI were significantly correlated with preschoolers' body shape which included chest circumference, calf length, calf circumference, foot length, and the distance between the greater trochanters. Overweight and obese preschoolers experienced faster body growth; conversely, underweight preschoolers often showed delayed growth. This underscores that the underweight group also merits attention and concern.

    Keywords: Underweight, Overweight, Obesity, Body Mass Index, Body Shape

    Received: 25 Jun 2024; Accepted: 08 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Chen, Luo and Fan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Dongmei Luo, Beijing Sport University, Beijing, 100084, Beijing Municipality, China
    Xue Fan, Anhui University of Technology, Ma'anshan, 243002, Anhui Province, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.