Asthma-Obesity Association among under 5 Years Children

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Noor A. Younes, Khaleel I. Alsuwayfee

 
For citation: Younes NA, Alsuwayfee KI. Asthma-Obesity Association among under 5 Years Children. International Journal of Biomedicine. 2026;16(2):207-211. doi:10.21103/Article16(2)_OA8
 
Originally published June 5, 2026

Abstract: 

Background: The association between asthma and obesity is well-studied in school-age and older children, but such research among preschool children is limited. The aim of this study was to measure obesity prevalence and evaluate its association with asthma among young children under 5 years.
Methods and Results: This case–control study was conducted in pediatric hospitals and pediatric wards of general hospitals in Mosul city, in northern Iraq. The study included 271 asthmatic children (with an allergic type of asthma) and 271 non-asthmatics of both sexes aged <60 months.
BMI was used to classify children as underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese, based on the percentile line on the gender-appropriate BMI/age growth chart provided by the World Health Organization. According to WHO definitions, children were divided into the following groups: BMI <3rd centile (underweight), BMI 3rd–85th centile (normal weight), BMI 85th–97th centile (overweight), BMI >97th centile (obese).
The prevalence of obesity (36.5%) was significantly higher among asthmatic children than non-asthmatics (23.2%) (P=0.000). The OR of being obese and asthmatic was 1.9 [95% CI: 1.30–2.76]. In addition, the mean BMI for cases and controls was 18.24±3.14 kg/m2 and 17.49±2.48 kg/m2, respectively, and, by Z-test, there was a significant difference between the groups: asthmatic patients had a higher BMI than controls (P=0.0021). Significantly more obese asthmatic children had a high frequency of severe asthmatic attacks requiring hospital admissions (>4 admissions/year) (67.7% vs. 37.8%, P=0.000), and the increase in the BMI was positively correlated with such a number (R2=0.12, P=0.01). Asthmatic obese young children experienced poor control of their asthma symptoms when using long-term control drugs than the non-obese ones (75.8 % vs 46.5 %, P=0.000). The mean ages of onset of asthma among obese asthmatic and non-obese asthmatic patients were 7.91±7.75 and 14.61±14.41 months, respectively (P<0.0001).
Conclusion: Obesity is prevalent among asthmatic young children, and it affects the disease profile in many aspects, including the age of onset, frequency of severe attacks, and the difficulty in controlling the symptoms.

Keywords: 
asthma • obesity • preschool children • young children
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Received February 21, 2026.
Accepted April 10, 2026.
© 2026 The Author(s). International Journal of Biomedicine is published by IMRDC.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.