20-year trends in prevalence of overweight and obesity among children aged 0-6 in Harbin, China: A multiple cross-sectional study

To examine the 20-year trends in the combined prevalence of overweight and obesity among children aged 0–6 years between 1995 and 2015 in Harbin, China, we selected altogether 49,553 children aged 0–6 years old by using a multistage stratified cluster sampling methods in Harbin, one provincial capital city in northeast China in 1995, 2005 and 2015. Height and weight information of the children were collected. We used the child growth standards of World Health Organization to calculate the Z-scores for body mass index (BMI). Cut-offs recommended by World Health Organization and International Obesity Task Force were used to define overweight and obesity for each children. We found there is no difference between boys’ BMI and girls’ among newborns in each survey point (p>0.05), but in older age groups, the BMI of boys was higher than that of girls (ppp