Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2018

DOI

10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018768

Publication Title

BMJ Open

Volume

8

Issue

6

Pages

e018768 (10pp.)

Abstract

Objective To assess the association between acculturation and body weight status among internal migrant children in China. Design, setting and participants A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1154 pairs of migrant children aged 11–17 years and their primary caregivers in Guangzhou, China, from April to May 2016. Measures Migrant children’s body weight status was measured by body mass index. Acculturation was measured by a questionnaire, developed and validated by the research team. The questionnaire had three dimensions with five factors, namely language, social interaction, custom, dressing and diet. Social anxiety was measured by Social Anxiety Scale for Children. Food intake was measured by the food frequency table that was developed from a previous study. Logistic regression was performed to examine the association between acculturation and overweight/obesity while controlling for migrant children’s and their caregivers’ demographic characteristics, children’s social anxiety and food intake. Results Seventy-six out of 1154 (6.6%) migrant children were overweight, and 36 (3.1%) were obese. The overall prevalence of overweight/obesity was 12.5% in boys, and 6.1% in girls (pConclusions The low levels of acculturation was associated with overweight/obesity among migrant children in Guangzhou, China. Promoting healthy acculturation and social campaign on healthy body weight may help prevent childhood overweight/obesity. Young migrant children, boys and children living with urban-to urban migrant caregivers should be the target subgroups.

Comments

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.

Original Publication Citation

Huang, X., Chen, W., Lin, Y., Zhang, Q., & Ling, L. (2018). Association between acculturation and body weight status among migrant children in Guangzhou, China: A cross-sectional study. BMJ Open, 8(6), e018768. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018768

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