An analysis of characteristics of children and adolescents physical growth in the context of social and economical situation of families inhabiting the city of Bytom

Underweight, overweight and obesity among children and adolescents is an important epidemiological problem, mostly because of consequences of health perturbations. This paper is intended to present the analysis of characteristics of children and adolescent physical growth in the context of social and economical situation of families inhabiting the city of Bytom. The Box-Cox transformation according to WHO standards for body weight, body height and BMI (Body Mass Index) is applied in the analysis. The transformation is a base for statistical analysis of measurable data using e.g. t-test, or Mann-Whitney test. Frequencies of underweight, overweight and obesity among children and adolescents are determined by centile ranks and growth charts by the Institute of Mother and Child in Warsaw, Poland, and analysed using differences significance test and the post-hoc test by Benferroni for percentages. The influence of social and economical factors are evaluated with #2-test and log-linear analysis. The main conclusion of the analysis confirms that the percentage of children and adolescents with overweight or obesity is growing. Moreover, the influence of social and economical factors (e.g. education of parents, or the average income per person) is significant. These are premises for further investigations and research in this field.