"Whole-school environmental mapping framework" in preventing childhood obesity in Selangor / Nik Muhammad Syafiq Ramli ... [et al.]

The prevalence of obesity and overweight has increased worldwide more dramatically with a large variation in trends across countries. Nowadays, factors that mostly lead to obesity among children are diet intake, sedentary lifestyles and environmental factor. The school environment is one of national concern regarding the increase number of overweight and obesity among children. Therefore, a study was conducted to identify the school environmental factors (physical, economic, political and socio-cultural) on healthy eating and physical activity and, to determine Body Mass Index (BMI) of urban and rural primary school children. Accordingly, the study was conducted in 60 randomly selected schools in Selangor, 30 from urban and 30 from rural area. The data of BMI was collected from children's report card and by measurement of weight and height. Further, data was collected by interviewed school representative face by using a whole school mapping questionnaire and observation of the school environment. Based on the findings, it showed that both rural and urban school comply toward physical environmental mapping with the percentage of compliance score 65.2% and 73% respectively. Meanwhile, for economic environmental showed both rural and urban school did not comply toward economic environmental mapping with the percentage of compliance score 24% and 37% respectively. Also, schools in rural and urban areas do not comply with the political environment, 59.4% and 55% respectively.