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A Screening Program for Overweight Status Among Schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia: A Proposed Co-design Project to Tackle the Problem




Author(s)

Elham A. Aljaaly

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DOI:10.17265/2160-6579/2017.05.001

King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

The paper realizes the importance of communicating with schools to conduct nutritional screening, assessment and intervention programs for obesity and related risk factors to tackle the problem at earlier stage. The screening program was conducted by dietetics’ students “under supervision” as part of their practice and community services to apply some assessment method for nutritional status. Two intermediate schools for girls in Jeddah city were involved in the screening stage, followed by a full nutritional assessment and implementation of a designed intervention program at one of the schools. At screening stage, interview questionnaires for diet histories and anthropometric measurements used to screen overweight status and related food patterns. National and international references data used for assessment and comparison. Following screening approach, a designed comprehensive nutritional assessment and intervention program was piloted at one of the screened schools for overweight status. For screening stage: the overall prevalence of overweight girls is 61% (n = 81 out of 133) of the population, 73% (n = 91) of girls were centrally obese. Almost 3/4 of all students reported no participations in any type of physical activities/exercises. Dietary behaviors included non-consumption of breakfast (83%) and low intake of fruit and vegetables (38%). For intervention stage, the present report concentrates on data concerning post intervention changes in Body Mass Index (BMI) and Waist Circumference (WC). By the 30 days of intervention there were significant changes in values for BMI according to Saudi growth chart (p value = 0.009) with no changes among the control group. No statistically significant difference in the mean WC of the group. Study’s results suggest that approaching young girls through schools to screen, assess and intervene overweight status and risk factors is vital. Although the non-random selection of only two schools for screening the prevalence of overweight status among school girls prevent the generalizability of the study findings to wider population, previous studies used random selection of schools and large sample sizes showed a high prevalence of overweight status among Saudi students. Therefore, designing and piloting of an intervention program for implementation at a national level is useful to tackle the problem. 

 screening program, nutritional assessment, overweight status, intervention programs, diet histories, anthropometry, dietetic students