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Revista Med

Print version ISSN 0121-5256

Abstract

RODRIGUEZ, JAVIER et al. PREDICTIVE RANDOM WALK OF OBESITY DYNAMIC AND PREDICTIONS OF OBESITY AND OVERWEIGHT IN CHILDREN FROM COLOMBIA AND WEIGHT/HEIGHT AND WEIGHT/AGE VARIATION IN MEXICO. rev.fac.med [online]. 2013, vol.21, n.2, pp.25-36. ISSN 0121-5256.

Obesity and overweight are public health problems both globally and in Latin America. The theory of probability and probabilistic random walk have been the basis for developing predictions of the dynamics of different epidemics. In this work, the growth of obesity in four countries is studied based on the random walk, to confirm the ability of the methodology to describe and predict this specific dynamics. Besides, simulations were developed to study variables associated with overweight and obesity in Colombia and Mexico, projecting a possible prediction to 2015. We studied obesity rates in the United States, Finland, Australia and England from 1982 to 1996 in analogy with a probabilistic random walk, assessing its predictive ability for 1997.Subsequently, dynamics simulations of overweight and obesity in Colombia were developed based on actual reports of 2005 and 2010, as well as simulations of the dynamics of weight/age and weight/ height in the Mexican population younger than 0-5 years, divided into four regions, based on the reports of 1999 and 2006. All the simulations were projected to 2015, based on the random walk. The analysis of the dynamics of the obesity rates based on random walk predicts if rates will remain stable or if they will go up in the United States, Finland, Australia and England, making predictions with an effectiveness rate equal to or higher than 97.85% in 1997. The simulations obtained for Mexico and Colombia predict a probable behavior until 2015 both with a regular growth and with the random walk. It was found that in 2015 in Colombia the prevalence of obesity for children aged 0 to 9 years will range between 4.2 and 11.2, and overweight in children between 10 and 17 years will range between 12.9 and 19.4. Predictive values between 0.1 and 7.7 were also found in Mexico for 2015 in children aged 0-5 years relating to the variable weight/height, while regarding weight/age values ranging between 0.2 and 11.89 were found. It was evident that the methodology is useful for the study of different variables associated with overweight and obesity dynamics and serve as a basis for developing predictions useful in making public health decisions.

Keywords : Probability; random walk; obesity; overweight.

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