Background

Childhood obesity and overweight are becoming a concern for public health worldwide since decades. In 2013, approximately 42 millions of children under the age of 5 years are either obese or overweight. The aim of the study is to highlight the need for early detection and preventive program

Method

This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2 CBAHI approved primary health care centers, in the ministry of health, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during 2015, among children two years and younger, using a checklist.

Result

280 children participated in the study of which 146 (52.1%) were female, and 134 (47.9%) were male .The prevalence of obesity and overweight was(1.0 and 5.5) respectively. 126 (45.0%) depend on mixed methods on feeding, 108 (38.6%) depend on breastfeeding & 46 (16.4%) depend on bottle feeding. The mean scores for the age of weaning were 5.4±0.8 for the age of weaning. There was a significant association between BMI category and both family history of obesity & child of a diabetic mother (p<0.001,p=0.04).

Conclusion

This study highlighted the problem of obesity and the rate of spread of the children in Jeddah, and also identified some of the risk factors associated with this phenomenon, where the study showed a strong association between family history of obesity (at least one of the parents is obese), diabetic mother and obese child. Further studies need to be conducted to investigate the relations between an obese child and other risk factors.