Table 1.
Baseline characteristics of study participants: children aged 2–9 years from eight European countries participating in the IDEFICS Study (2007–2008)
| All (n 2508) | Boys (n 1264) | Girls (n 1244) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean | sd | Mean | sd | Mean | sd | |
| Age (years) | 6·3 | 1·8 | 6·3 | 1·8 | 6·3 | 1·8 |
| Height (cm) | 119·2 | 7·5 | 119·9 | 12·6 | 118·6 | 12·7 |
| Weight (kg) | 24·0 | 7·5 | 24·4 | 7·6 | 23·6 | 7·4 |
| BMI (kg/m2) | 16·5 | 2·7 | 16·6 | 2·7 | 16·4 | 2·6 |
| n | % | n | % | n | % | |
| BMI† | ||||||
| Thinness (BMI < 18·5 kg/m2) | 305 | 12·2 | 164 | 13·0 | 141 | 11·3 |
| Normal weight (18·5 ≤ BMI < 25·0 kg/m2) | 1689 | 67·3 | 840 | 66·5 | 849 | 68·2 |
| Overweight (25·0 ≤ BMI < 30·0 kg/m2) | 333 | 13·3 | 163 | 12·9 | 170 | 13·7 |
| Obesity (BMI ≥ 30·0 kg/m2) | 181 | 7·2 | 97 | 7·7 | 84 | 6·8 |
| Age group | ||||||
| 2–<6 years | 993 | 39·6 | 492 | 38·9 | 501 | 40·3 |
| 6–9 years | 1515 | 60·4 | 772 | 61·1 | 743 | 59·7 |
| Parental education level‡ | ||||||
| Low | 213 | 10·9 | 112 | 11·5 | 101 | 10·3 |
| Medium | 1012 | 51·8 | 505 | 52·0 | 507 | 51·7 |
| High | 727 | 37·2 | 355 | 36·5 | 372 | 38·0 |
| Country | ||||||
| Italy | 398 | 15·9 | 217 | 17·2 | 181 | 14·5 |
| Estonia | 15 | 0·6 | 5 | 0·4 | 10 | 0·8 |
| Cyprus | 28 | 1·1 | 12 | 0·9 | 16 | 1·3 |
| Belgium | 11 | 0·4 | 5 | 0·4 | 6 | 0·5 |
| Sweden | 97 | 3·9 | 47 | 3·7 | 50 | 4·0 |
| Germany | 366 | 14·6 | 180 | 14·2 | 186 | 15·0 |
| Hungary | 1418 | 56·5 | 699 | 55·3 | 719 | 57·8 |
| Spain | 175 | 7·0 | 99 | 7·8 | 76 | 6·1 |
ISCED, International Standard Classification of Education.
†According to Cole et al.'s categories( 45 ). Thinness includes: thinness grade III, thinness grade II and thinness grade I.
‡Low = ISCED Levels 1 and 2; medium = ISCED Levels 3 and 4; high = ISCED Level 5. ISCED is an indicator of socio-economic level( 46 ).