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Aims: The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of overweight, obesity and abdominal obesity and their associated factors in a large sample of urban Indian schoolchildren. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted in 5 cities in India. Height and weight were measured in 38,296 children and waist circumference was measured in 29,244 children aged 8–18 years. The prevalence was compared with respect to age, gender, type of school and city of residence. Results: The mean ± standard deviation for age was 13.3 ± 2.4 years and 18.3 ± 4.3 kg/m2 for BMI. The prevalence of overweight and obesity in 8- to 18-year-old children, respectively, was 14.4 and 2.8% by IOTF cutoffs, 14.5 and 4.8% by CDC cutoffs and 18.5 and 5.3% by WHO cutoffs. When applying the cutoffs specific for Indian ethnicity in 14- to 18-year-old children, the prevalence was higher (21.1 and 12.3%, respectively) as compared to the IOTF, WHO and CDC cutoffs. The overall prevalence of abdominal obesity in urban Indian schoolchildren was 4.5%. The prevalence of overweight and abdominal obesity was significantly higher in females than males (p < 0.001). High socioeconomic status and residing in cities with a population greater than 4 million were independently associated with overweight and abdominal obesity (p < 0.001). On extrapolating these data, more than 15 million children would currently be overweight and 4 million abdominally obese in urban India. Conclusions: There is a substantial burden of childhood obesity in India, which necessitates comprehensive urban-based campaigns for its prevention and control.

Increasing prevalence of childhood obesity calls for comprehensive and cost-effective educative measures in developing countries such as India. School-based educative programmes greatly influence children's behaviour towards healthy living. We aimed to evaluate the impact of a school-based health and nutritional education programme on knowledge and behaviour of urban Asian Indian school children. Benchmark assessment of parents and teachers was also done. We educated 40 196 children (aged 8–18 years), 25 000 parents and 1500 teachers about health, nutrition, physical activity, non-communicable diseases and healthy cooking practices in three cities of North India. A pre-tested questionnaire was used to assess randomly selected 3128 children, 2241 parents and 841 teachers before intervention and 2329 children after intervention. Low baseline knowledge and behaviour scores were reported in 75–94 % government and 48–78 % private school children, across all age groups. A small proportion of government school children gave correct answers about protein (14–17 %), carbohydrates (25–27 %) and saturated fats (18–32 %). Private school children, parents and teachers performed significantly better than government school subjects (P P P