The Malta Childhood National Body Mass Index Study – A Population Study

Introduction: Obesity is a chronic disease that often commences in childhood. Over quarter of Maltese children are overweight or obese. This study was carried out in order to measure height and weight (and Body Mass Index) for all school children in Malta in order to precisely quantify the extent of the problem.

Methods: Schooling in Malta is provided by: A. Free State schools, B. Subsidised Roman-Catholic Church-run schools and C. Independent Private schools. All were included. Physical education teachers were trained in measurements on identical stadiometers. Bespoke spreadsheets were created using World Health Organisation cut-offs for underweight, overweight and obesity.

Results: This study included over 45889 children in over 145 schools (ages 4.7-17years). Less than 10% were unmeasured. Circa 40% of school-aged children in Malta are overweight or obese. The proportion of obese was greater than of overweight. Levels of overweight and obesity were significantly different: State>Church>Independent schools. Overall, and for both genders and for school types, there was a trend for overweight and obesity to peak in Years 5-8, then decline slightly. Overweight and obesity was secondary>primary schools, and males>females. The underweight group was small with no significant difference between the school types.

Conclusion: This study has confirmed high levels of overweight and obesity in Maltese children. It also provides proof of concept of scalability by demonstrating the feasibility of undertaking a relatively inexpensive study of an entire childhood population. The modus operandi (utilising physical education teachers) could relatively easily be up scaled for any country.