Endocrine Abstracts

We examined the nutrition of 300 children aged 5–7 in households, preschool and school institutions and established that, surprisingly, that children’s prescribed diet in the institutions includes a daily consumption of sweet tea, fruit compotes, cocoa and sweet carbonated drinks, and that the favorite food of children is sweet and fatty confectionery. An indispensable attribute of a typical school is a nearby retail outlets that profit from the desire of children to buy bright, cheap, but unhealthy low-quality sweets. Earlier studies of obese adults show that up to 35% of them suffered from obesity from early childhood. Considering that Uzbekistan is a country with a relatively young population (the average age in 2017 being 28.5 years), one can extrapolate a significant increase in obesity levels given these diets. In addition to school and household diets, the rollback of breastfeeding practices and the early introduction of complementary foods and cow milk contributes significantly to the predominance of childhood obesity. In Uzbekistan, the traditionally favored family model being many children (mostly one every two years), full breastfeeding of the newborn becomes a challenge, contributing to childhood obesity.