OBESITY PREVALENCE AND ASSOCIATED BERA VIOUR IN LEBANESE CHILDREN: A PILOT STUDY ON 1268 STUDENTS Pascale Salameh1,Bernadette Barbour1, Rony Abboucf 1Lebanese University, Faculty of Public Health2 Holy Spirit University, Department of Nutrition Abstract Introduction: Obesity has a high prevalence in Lebanon adolescents, but nothing is known about children obesity. Our objective was to evaluate obesity and its related behaviour in school children. Methods: This is a cross-sectional pilot study that assessed nutritional behaviour, physical activity and hobbies of 1268 children, stressing on differences between males andfemales. Results: Boys have a trendfor a higher obesity than girls in Lebanon; however, they are less likely to adopt nutritional behaviours that maintain or decrease weight. Nevertheless, girls prefer activities that are associated with higher obesity, while boys prefer those that prevent obesity. Conclusion: Our results are similar to those of other researchers. Further studies are necessary to confirm the results obtained in this study. Running title: "Obesity detirminants in Lebanese children" Key-words: Obesity, nutritional behaviour, physical activity, hobbies Introduction Obesity has become one of the most common chronic disorders in childhood and adolescence in industrialized countries [1], and in developing countries [2]. Overall, childhood and adolescent obesity substantially increases the risk of subsequent morbidity, whether or not obesity persists into adulthood. It is well established that 70 to 80% of obese adolescents will remain obese as adults [3]. Among the most common sequels of primary childhood are hypertension, dyslipidemia, back pain and psychosocial problems [4,5]. Obesity has also been linked to health outcomes in adulthood, such as increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus and hypeliension [4,5]. In a previous work performed on adolescents aged 10 to 18 years from Lebanese private schools, we have shown that obesity prevalence was 2.5 times higher in boys (10.1%) than in girls (4.2%). Boys at risk of obesity (28.8%) were almost 1.5 times more numerous than girls (19.0%)(p<O.001) [6,7]. No studies were done to determine obesity status of Lebanese children less than 10 years of age. Studies are also needed to explain the nutritional behaviour and activities of Lebanese children in relation to obesity. 23 Journal d'Epidemiologie et de Sante Publique, JESP, W3, Decembre 2009