Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity among Adolescents in Seven Arab Countries: A Cross-Cultural Study

Table 1

Sample size, means, and standard deviations (SD) for age, weight, height, and BMI of adolescents (15–18 years) in seven Arab countries^a.

Variables	Sex	Algeria; (Algiers city)	Jordan; (Amman)	Kuwait; (Kuwait city)	Libya; (Tripoli)	Palestine; (Al-Khalil)	Syria; (Damascus)	UAE; (Sharjah)
Sample size	M	194	462	273	280	220	549	262
	F	265	475	355	350	257	513	243
Age (years); (Mean ± SD)	M	16.90 ± 0.83	16.45 ± 0.58	16.70 ± 1.0	16.15 ± 0.94	16.40 ± 0.92	16.21 ± 0.85	16.41 ± 0.93
	F	16.96 ± 0.79	16.54 ± 0.84	16.52 ± .095	16.17 ± 0.95	16.31 ± 0.93	16.41 ± 0.95	16.54 ± 0.99
Weight (kg); (Mean ± SD)	M	64.0 ± 10.9	67.7 ± 16.5	82.7 ± 23.1	64.2 ± 14.7	61.9 ± 13.0	66.8 ± 14.2	70.0 ± 21.4
	F	58.8 ± 10.5	58.9 ± 10.9	65.1 ± 20.5	59.9 ± 13.3	56.1 ± 9.8	58.1 ± 10.0	54.6 ± 14.2
Height (CM); (Mean ± SD)	M	173.4 ± 7.2	170.8 ± 7.1	171.2 ± 7.0	167.4 ± 7.4	169.3 ± 7.0	172.4 ± 15.4	169.4 ± 12.0
	F	161.7 ± 5.7	162.1 ± 5.7	159.3 ± 6.6	157.9 ± 5.5	160.3 ± 5.8	160.0 ± 5.8	157.9 ± 7.2
BMI (kg/m^2); (Mean ± SD)	M	21.3 ± 3.7	23.1 ± 5.1	28.1 ± 7.5	22.8 ± 4.5	21.5 ± 4.0	22.5 ± 4.4	26.9 ± 36.1
	F	22.5 ± 3.6	22.4 ± 3.9	25.6 ± 7.7	24.0 ± 5.0	21.8 ± 3.4	22.7 ± 3.7	21.9 ± 5.7

aOne way ANOVA tests were significantly different between countries (P < 0.000) for both males and females.