Authors : A. Musaj, Albana Uka, B. Broqi, Lorike Salihu, Mimoza Ahmeti, Qendresa Qorraj and Vlora Rama
Abstract: Changes in life style in the last decades in Kosovo have shown an effect in many aspects in the social life of children by spending more time in playing inside house computer game, low level of physical activities which may increase the prevalence for diabetes and anthropometric changes. Transport to school, distance, academic class that pupil are attending, geographically position where pupil live and gender my affect the Body Mass Index (BMI) of the pupil. Therefore, the objective of this study is to assess whether there is a statistically significant correlation between the body mass index and several indicators (life style and gender) for primary school children with ages ranging from 5-8 in five geographically distributed, different cities in Kosovo. Results showed a difference among the mean BMI and gender groups with p<0.005 but there was no difference between age groups. No correlation was found between BMI and neither the way of transport nor school-home distance. BMI was reported to be effected from several factors like socioeconomic one which in the present study during the measurement are neglected or try to standardize. The resulting data is important since, it represents first study of this kind in Kosovo which can later be re-used in prevalence studies.
A. Musaj, Albana Uka, B. Broqi, Lorike Salihu, Mimoza Ahmeti, Qendresa Qorraj and Vlora Rama, 2018. Body Mass Index of Children 5-8 Years Old in Kosovo, Indication of Transport Way and School-Home Distance. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 13: 6099-6103.