To present the prevalence and urban-rural differences of overweight and @entity28 in 7-9-year-old Swedish schoolchildren, we used anthropometric data from a nationally representative survey performed in 2008. Trained staff weighed and measured 4538 @entity1 in grades 1 and 2 in 94 primary schools. Weight classification was performed using the IOTF reference and school areas were classified based on level of urbanization and area-level education. Overweight was found in 17% of the @entity1 including 3% obese. For overweight, odds-ratios were 1.33 and 1.61 (significant) in semi-urban and rural areas, relative to urban areas. After adjusting for area-level education, differences by degree of urbanisation were greatly attenuated and non-significant. For @entity28 urban-rural differences were observed in @entity1 only and remained after adjustment for area-level education. For area-level education, risk estimates were significantly elevated and unaffected by urbanization and gender, odds-ratios 1.75 and 2.21 for overweight and 2.62 and 3.69 for @entity28 , in medium- and low-education areas compared to high-education areas. This supports earlier reports identifying areas with low socioeconomic status as high-risk areas for overweight and @entity28 . However, this study also suggests that gender should be considered when targeting @entity1 in urban as well as rural communities for health promoting interventions.

Overweight and XXXX in a representative sample of schoolchildren - exploring the urban-rural gradient in Sweden.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['boys', 'children'] @entity28 :: ('MESH:D009765', 'Disease') :: ['obesity']
@entity28 :: (MESH:D009765,Disease) :: ['obesity']
