The differences were significant in the overweight group with the Indians most overweight, followed by the Chinese and the Malays. Epidemiology, prevalence, obese, overweight, school children, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Malay, Chinese, Indian Introduction Obesity in childhood has been identified as a problem in many affluent societies, particularly in countries where children consume unhealthy foods, snacks or beverages every day. Obesity is usually defined as an excess of body fat which results in significant impairment of health 1 . Although the health risks of obesity in children are poorly established, obesity in childhood predisposes the individual to obesity in adulthood 2 where the health risks of obesity are clear. Sometimes, the variation in prevalence is due to varying obesity definitions and measurement criteria.
Obesity is related to age, sex, social class and cultural background.
In developed countries, obesity is more prevalent in lower than higher income groups. Prevalence rates therefore will vary with methodology, population characteristics and obesity definitions. This paper reports the prevalence of overweight and obese children amongst the three major ethnic groups in children attending schools in Kuala Lumpur. In the first stage, the city of Kuala Lumpur was stratified into specific zones and the schools were randomly selected proportional to the number of schools in each zone. Each zone was defined based on government districts according to their geographical lay out and not on population size or ethnic population distribution.