THE PREVALENCE OF OBESITY

IN VIETNAMESE CHILDREN IN HANOI

Vietnamese children who have obesity have higher risk of
getting severe diseases due to two critical risk factors appeared
in obesity which are high blood pressure (hypertension) and
high cholesterol.
In reality, the proportion of obese children in Vietnam has rise
significantly over the past 10 years, mainly children in the city
(Ministry of Health of Vietnam, 2021).
The grave consequense caused by obesity is the high risk of
contacting major diseases such as obesity hypoventilation
syndrome (OHS), pneumonia, diarrhea,… , especially in
children (DR. Luu Thi My Thuc*).
*DR. Luu Thi My Thuc, Head of Department of Clinical
Nutrition and Dietetics of Vietnam National Chilren’s Hospital.
The purpose of this proposed experimental study will be to
detect the reasons behind the obesity of children at a secondary
school in Hanoi, Vietnam and therefore come up with solutions
to prevent the syndrome. The weekly feedbacks of children’s
health before, during and after the experiment of several healthy
life style and weight loss methods which is given to children and
their parents, either physical or digital report cards, will serve as
the independent variable. The dependent variable is defined as
the physical and mental health of children after each week of
experiment.
The research questions would be:
What explainations for obesity in children (who live in Hanoi,
Vietnam) has already been detected?
Which factors affect obesity in children the most? Parents?
COVID-19? Eating habits?...
What kind of research methods are suitable for children’s
(physical and mental) health?
Which methods are the most effective?
What should be included in the report cards?
What other factors should be considered? Ethnicity? Religion?...
What are the limitations of the research?
Literature review
The research report “Early Onset of Overweight and Obesity
among Low-Income 1- to 5-Year Olds in New York City”
carried out by Matilde Irigoyen, Melissa E. Glassman, Shaofu
Chen, and Sally E. Findley of the Journal of Urban Health*,
indicated that the lack of outdoor activities and accessibility to
healthy foods are factors contributing to the risk of obesity in
children in the ages between 1 and 3, which is considered the
common age period when children start to develop their obesity.
In the report, there are recommendation for further research to
examine in detail the development of obesity in children along
with social and physical risk factors which may appear during
their childhood period. By applying these knowledge,
researchers would be able to limit the age period when obesity
in children starts developing based on data of previous researchs
so they could further design diets and obesity prevention
methods suitabled for children. There are some drawbacks of the
report which mainly because it was carried out long ago in the
past so there are many data analysis from then to the present
needed to be done to bring up an up-to-date research, but it is
rather a trustful source to base on.
* Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy
of Medicine, 2008.
Another research about obesity on US children in 2003-2006
named “High Body Mass Index for Age Among US Children
and Adolescents, 2003-2006” was published on JAMA**, Vol.
299, No. 20 on May 28, 2008. This research carried out by
Cynthia L. Ogden, PhD; Margaret D. Carroll, MSPH and
Katherine M. Flegal, PhD provides the overall view of obesity
phenomenon among US children of both sexes from 2 to 19 year
olds.
…
**JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association