Socioeconomic disparities in unhealthy weight: A need for health promotion among school-aged children

Overweight and obesity as a major public health issue can lead to adverse health consequences during the life span. This study aimed to measure socioeconomic inequality in unhealthy weight among school students in Kermanshah, west of Iran.

The cross-sectional study measured the socioeconomic-related inequalities in unhealthy weight among 1404 secondary school students aged 11–16 years in Kermanshah in 2018. Unhealthy weight is defined as body mass index of >25 kg/m2 in the study. Socioeconomic-related inequality in unhealthy weight was calculated using the concentration index (Cn). A logistic regression model was used to estimate the marginal effect of independent variables.

The prevalence of unhealthy weight for the total sample was 0.13 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.11–0.14). Of these, the prevalence of unhealthy weight for girls and boys was 0.11 (95% CI: 0.09–0.14) and 0.15 (95% CI: 0.12–0.18), respectively. The value of Cnfor the total sample was 0.12 (95% CI: 0.03–0.2), which indicates a higher concentration of unhealthy weight among the high socioeconomic status (SES) students. Two factors of SES (49.11%) and gender (40.08%) had the largest contribution to socioeconomic inequality in unhealthy weight among the study students.

Socioeconomic-related inequality in unhealthy weight was concentered among high-SES students in the study. Thus, public health policies need to be formulated to change sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy dietary patterns among students with higher SES.