On February 4, Kyiv presented the results of the first study in Ukraine, which assesses the level of overweight and obesity among children of primary school age, conducted within the framework of the WHO European Initiative (COSI). It turned out that in our country every fifth child aged 6-8 years has excess body weight. This is evidenced the results, published by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.
Research results
The study showed that 22.96% of children aged 6-8 are overweight, with 9.13% obese and 2.63% severely obese. At the same time, boys are more likely to have problems with excess weight (25.24%) than girls (20.72%).
Deputy Minister of Health Ihor Kuzin noted that the results of this study make it possible to study in more detail the causes of childhood obesity, evaluate the effectiveness of the school nutrition reform, and improve approaches to the prevention of non-infectious diseases among children.
At the same time, the Ministry of Health notes that the prevalence of overweight and obesity among Ukrainian children generally corresponds to the world average: on average, 25% of children in European countries are overweight or obese.
The main factors of obesity among children
The main causes of overweight among children in Ukraine are unbalanced nutrition and low physical activity. Only half of the children follow the recommendations of the Ministry of Health regarding the consumption of fruits and vegetables: 55.3% of children eat fruits every day, and 41.4% eat vegetables. Instead, 20.3% of children regularly consume sweetened beverages, and 17.8% – sweet snacks (cookies, cakes, desserts).
In addition, there is an insufficient level of physical activity among children: a third of children do not play sports at all or have less than an hour of intensive physical activity per week. At the same time, 54.4% of schoolchildren spend more than two hours a day in front of gadget screens on weekdays, and on weekends this indicator increases to 83.4%.
Breastfeeding and its effects
The study also drew attention to the importance of breastfeeding in the prevention of obesity. Only 26% of children received exclusively breast milk in the first six months of life, which corresponds to WHO recommendations. At the same time, every sixth child was breastfed for less than a month, and every eleventh child did not receive breast milk at all.
State measures to improve children’s nutrition
In Ukraine, the reform of school meals is underway, aimed at improving the quality of food for students. In October 2024, the government allocated 2 billion hryvnias for the organization of free hot meals for primary school students. As of November, 93% of schools have already used the subvention funds and implemented free meals for children in grades 1-4.
The study was conducted from November 2023 to February 2024 among students of grades 1-2, their parents and representatives of educational institutions in 20 regions of Ukraine (except occupied territories and war zones). In total, 3,557 children and 3,601 parents were interviewed in 187 schools.
