Childhood and adolescent obesity tends to
extend into adulthood and predisposes the
individual to some chronic diseases in later life.
Body composition is a good parameter for
evaluating obesity and nutritional status of
children. This study aimed to investigate
differences in body fat of Nigerian school
children in Makurdi, Nigeria. The study sample
consisted of a cross-sectional study of 979 boys
and 1036 girls who were aged 9-12 years.
Anthropometric measures of stature, body
mass, triceps, subscapular and medial calf
skinfolds were assessed. Percentage body fat in
girls ranged from 15.2-17.4%, which was
consistently higher than that in boys, i.e. 10.3-
11.9%. Generally, the girls had higher
measures of adipose tissue (sum of skinfolds
and percentage body fat) than boys. The
Nigerian girls at all ages had higher percentage
body fat compared to the boys, which indicates
gender differences in the children’s body
fatness. The study provides a baseline
assessment of body fatness in Nigerian
children. Future studies on tracking of
percentage body fat in relation to nutritional
and fitness levels in Nigerian children are
needed so that the children, parents and
teachers can obtain reliable information about
body composition and health related fitness.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:tut/oai:encore.tut.ac.za:d1001035 |
| Date | 09 1900 |
| Creators | Goon, DT, Toriola, AL, Shaw, BS |
| Publisher | African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance (AJPHERD) |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | |
| Rights | African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance (AJPHERD) |
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