Paper short abstract:

The study aims to assess overweight and obesity in preadolescent children, in small towns in the provinces of Apulia Region (IT), in order to compare the results with those of the provincial capital city, according to a longitudinal study carried out in Italy and supported by the Ministry of Health.

Paper long abstract:

The emergence of obesity in preadolescent children, aged 8-9 years, has increasingly become a real epidemic, reaching very high percentages in southern Europe and, in particular, in the south of Italy. The present study aims to assess overweight and obesity in the Apulia Region in which, according to a longitudinal study carried out in Italy and supported by the Ministry of Health (Okkio alla Salute 2008-2012), the values are steadily growing. In this paper we focus our attention on the distribution of overweight and obesity in small towns in the provinces of Apulia, in order to compare them with the obesity in the provincial capital city. The sample of small towns was obtained by drawing lots among the various municipalities in each province with under 50,000 inhabitants.

The comparison between our data and those of Okkio alla Salute (which is based on a sampling by province, including both small and large urban centers), shows that our data are practically the same only in the case of the province of Lecce (39.4% vs. 39% of Okkio), while particularly distant values are attributable to Brindisi (47.3% vs 39%). The other provinces show differences of about 4

percentage points: Bari (37% vs. 41%), Foggia 44.4% vs. 48%) and Taranto (46% vs. 42%). In this paper we try to interpret the different distribution of overweight and obesity in relation to lifestyle and also new pollution emergencies.