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Epidemiology
Research
Descriptive epidemiology of changes in weight and weight-related behaviours of Australian children aged 5 years: two population-based cross-sectional studies in 2010 and 2015
  1. Louise L Hardy1,2,
  2. Louise A Baur1,2,3,
  3. Li Ming Wen2,3,4,
  4. Sarah P Garnett2,5,
  5. Seema Mihrshahi1,2,3
  1. 1 Prevention Research Collaboration, Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  2. 2 Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  3. 3 NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in The Early Prevention of Obesity in Childhood, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  4. 4 Health Promotion Unit, Sydney Local Health District, Camperdown, NSW, Australia
  5. 5 Institute of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Kids Research Institute at the Children’s Hospital, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Louise L Hardy; louise.hardy{at}sydney.edu.au

Abstract

Objective Over the past 10–15 years there has been substantial investment in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, to reduce child obesity through interventions in children aged 0–5 years. We report changes in weight and weight-related behaviours of 5-year-old children.

Design Cross-sectional surveys conducted in 2010 and 2015.

Setting NSW schools (2010 n=44; 2015 n=41)

Participants Australian children in kindergarten (2010 n=1141 and 2015 n=1150).

Outcome measures Change in anthropometry and indicators of diet, screen time, school travel and awareness of health recommendations. Additionally, we examined 2015 differences in weight-related behaviours by sociodemographic characteristics.

Results Prevalence of overweight/obesity was 2.1% lower (adjusted OR (AOR) 0.83, 95% CI 0.67 to 1.04) and abdominal obesity 1.7% higher (AOR 1.35, 95% CI 0.93 to 1.98) in 2015 than 2010. Significant improvements in multiple weight-related behaviours were observed among children in the highest tertile of junk food consumption (AOR 0.63, 95% CI 0.50 to 0.80), rewarded for good behaviour with sweets (AOR 0.59, 95% CI 0.47 to 0.74) and had a TV in their bedroom (AOR 0.65, 95% CI 0.43 to 0.96). In 2015, children from low socioeconomic neighbourhoods and non-English-speaking backgrounds were generally less likely to engage in healthy weight-related behaviours than children from high socioeconomic status neighbourhoods and from English-speaking backgrounds. Children in these demographic groups were less likely to eat breakfast daily, have high junk food intake and eat fast food regularly. Children from rural areas tended to have healthier weight-related behaviours than children from urban areas.

Conclusions There were significant positive changes in 5-year-old children’s weight-related behaviours but children from low socioeconomic neighbourhoods and from non-English-speaking backgrounds were more likely to engage in unhealthy weight-related behaviours than children from high socioeconomic neighbourhoods and English-speaking backgrounds. The findings indicate that there is a need to enhance population-level efforts and ensure community programmes are targeted and tailored to meet different subpopulation needs.

  • community child health
  • preventive medicine
  • public health

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019391

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors LLH, LAB, SPG, LMW and SM had equal contributions to this paper. LLH led the writing and conducted the data analysis. LLH had full access to all of the data (including statistical reports and tables) in the study and can take full responsibility for the overall content.

    • Funding NSW Ministry of Health

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Parental/guardian consent obtained.

    • Ethics approval University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee, the NSW Department of Education and Training, and the NSW Catholic Education Commission.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement The data that support the findings of this study are available from NSW Ministry of Health but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under licence for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of NSW Ministry of Health.