Bo Werner
Orebro University School of Medicine Sweden
Title: Increasing Rate Of Weight Loss For Schoolchildren Within The Epidemic Of Obesity – A Swedish Paradox?
Biography
Biography: Bo Werner
Abstract
This paper contrasts two findings from the same national covering material in Sweden for children born in 1973 and 1981 from age 7y to 18y. For both boys and girls obesity is increasing in both prevalence and severity and at the same time there is an increasing rate of weight loss episodes especially among girls. Two questions are put: Does this simultaneously development challenge public health work and can these findings be replicated elsewhere? Like in most of the world, the obesity epidemic among children and adolescents is also present in Sweden. Longitudinal surveys of two national representative samples born in 1973 and 1981 have shown that over a period of eight years the rate of obesity among boys and girls, age 7 to 18y, has increased both in prevalence and severity. The last decade’s discussions on whether weight loss and eating disorders, especially among girls, is a growing problem have been ongoing in many countries, but nevertheless it has never been shown convincingly as an increasing phenomenon. In Sweden, by investigating the same data-set as in the study above, it has been shown that there is an increasing rate of weight loss episodes among both boys and girls, especially girls.
