Information is needed to describe overweight in smaller geographic areas for local health planning.
Stage one of the sampling involved a stratified random selection and recruitment of 32 schools for participation in the study. Schools refusing to participate were replaced by another randomly selected school from the respective stratum. In stage two, one random sample of up to four homeroom classrooms from each grade level was selected from each school, yielding 137 total classrooms. The size of the school determined the number of classrooms sampled. Finally, interviewers randomly selected students within classrooms who had received informed parental consent to participate.