Abstract
Nowadays overweight and obesity are characterized as global issue, from the aspect of health and economy as well, and also it can variate by the age and gender. Regarding above-mentioned the aim of this research is to evaluate general nutritional status and differences by the age and gender of pupils who attend the elementary school from Herceg Novi. This study included 65 pupils of second (N=35) and third grade (N=30) of both gander from elementary school from Herceg Novi, divided into two subsamples. Two variables were used to assess the degree of nutrition, namely BMI and WHtR. Measures of central tendency and dispersion were calculated for all variables. Differences in nutritional status between participants were determined by using a t-test for small and independent samples with statistical significance p≤0.05. Statistical analysis was accomplished by SPSS 23.0 software. On the basis of obtained results it can be said that 12.3% of participants of total simple were overweight, and 27.69% obese for BMI values, while for values of WHtR, 20% participants were classified as obese. On the other side, statistically significant differences at nutritional status by the gender were not founded, while for the age differences existed. Third grade pupils showed a statistically significantly higher level of nutritional status compared to second grade pupils (p=0.012) for WHtR values. Herceg Novi as a city has a significant problem with obesity, and it is necessary to act on it very quickly.
Key words: obesity, pupils, gander, age, Herceg Novi
