Prevalence of obesity, overweight, underweight, and stunting among school children in Argo city, Northern Sudan.

School children pass through great physical and mental changes, which affect both their growth and school performance. We aim at determining the prevalence of obesity, overweight, underweight, and stunting among the primary school children in Argo city, Northern Sudan. This cross-section study recruited all primary school children aged 6 to 14 years in the city. Out of 1,387 participants, 1,223 were enrolled in the study (88.2%). The rest were excluded because of age over 14 years or parental refusal to participate in the study. Growth analysis of this cohort showed that 19 children (1.5%) were obese, 76 (6.2%) overweight, 56 (4.6%) underweight, 45 (3.7%) severely underweight, and 46 (3.8%) children were stunted. These findings indicate that establishing intervention measures to prevent risk factors leading to obesity and overweight is highly needed.