Background: Overweight and obesity are becoming a big issue in Shandong province. Based on the big data of children and adolescents in Shandong province, we try to explore the spatial differences and explain the causes of this phenomenon, so as to provide suggestions and data support for solving related problems in similar areas.
Methods: The sample came from Shandong province's physical examination data in 2017. A total of 10.27 million schoolchildren aged 6-18 years were included. ArcGIS software (hot spot analysis) was used to explore the spatial differences, and regional influencing factors were analyzed by multinomial logistic regression.
Results: The prevalence of overweight and obesity among schoolchildren aged 6-18 years were 17.93% and 6.79%, respectively. Moreover, boys/girls, urban/rural areas both showed that the former rate was higher than the latter, and the 9-11 age group was confirmed to have the highest prevalence. Regional distribution illustrated that, in Shandong province, the areas with high prevalence of overweight and obesity were mainly concentrated in the central, northern and eastern parts, and the hot spot clusters were located in Yantai and Weihai, while the low-value areas were aggregated in the western (boys) and southern (girls) regions. Further exploration revealed that total retail sales of consumer goods (CGTRS) and per capita disposable income (PCDI) were confirmed as risk factors for regional obesity level.
Conclusions: The spatial difference of overweight and obesity is statistically significant between the eastern region (high value cluster) and the western region (low value cluster), and it is influenced by some regional factors, suggesting that for a few regions, relevant department should pay more attention to this phenomenon. More education on this problem should be done to make people know more about health, and more researches should be done to see what intervention could solve this problem.