Introduction:

Overweight and obesity affect public health on a global level and its increase is due to multiple factors.

Objective:

To determine socioeconomic, demographic, familial, and institutional factors associated with excess weight in daycare children aged 2-5 years in Envigado, Colombia from 2014-2015 in order to strengthen childhood overweight and obesity prevention strategies.

Materials and methods:

An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study with a sample of 278 children, selected by probability sampling. Anthropometric evaluation was conducted along with parental and teacher surveys. Bi-variate and multivariate statistical analyses were completed using SPSS.

Results:

28.8% presented with excess weight (9.7% obesity and 19.1% overweight); 48.6% were aged 5 years, and 47.8% were female. Factors associated with excess weight included: not attending the growth and development program (OR 4.1; CI;1.2-14.1), preference for television watching and use of video games during free time (OR 4.4; CI:1.10-17.7), not eating whole grains and root vegetables for snack (OR 5.5; CI:1.2-26.1), and incidence of overweight or obesity in the family or direct caregiver (OR 3.8; CI:1.1-13.3).

Conclusion:

Factors that most influence excess weight in children are familiar factors such as incidence of overweight and obesity and caregiving practices in the family.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )