Asthma-obesity comorbidity in middle school aged children in rural southeastern US: Implications for targeted school-based behavioral intervention development

Asthma and obesity are notable chronic diseases in children. Asthma prevalence in US is 7.4% (ages 5-14) and continues to rise. The rate of US childhood obesity has tripled in one generation. The literature reports an association between obesity and asthma in adults but there is a paucity of studies evaluating childhood asthma-obesity comordibity by personal variables. Having a better understanding of the asthma-obesity relationship will have important ramifications for asthma/obesity prevention, treatment and management. We sought to describe asthma-obesity associations in middle school children in rural SE US. The children’s (n=562 children; 10 -15 years) health records were obtained from the school administration. Predictor variables included ethnicity, and asthma diagnosis. Control variables included age and gender. The outcome variable was BMI categorized to percentiles. Using STATA the association between children’s asthma diagnosis, BMI percentile, and personal variables using chi-square test of significance, ANOVA, and ordered logistic regression was assessed. Our analysis showed 43.6% of children were overweight/obese; 44.5% males and 42.4% females and 41.2% whites and 47.6% blacks were overweight/obese. 79.7% of participants had a diagnosis of asthma with 41.7% also being overweight/obese. Children with asthma were more likely to have higher BMI percentiles; the odds of having a higher BMI percentile versus the consecutive lower BMI percentile was 1.47 times greater than for children with no asthma with borderline significance. For asthmatic children, ethnicity was not associated with BMI. We conclude that behavioral interventions concurrently targeting asthma and obesity prevention, treatment and management may prove highly effective.