Insulin resistence in obese and non obese pre-pubertal children: Cross sectional study in Indonesia

High prevalence of childhood obesity increases risk of insulin resistance in pre-pubertal children. The purpose of this study is to identify the presence of insulin resistance in pre-pubertal obese children and compare with children who had normal nutritional status. Observational analytic study with a cross sectional design is used for this research. There are 60 elementary school students aged 6-9 years involved in this study, 30 obese students and 30 students with normal nutritional status based on BMI for Age. Fasting insulin, fasting blood glucose and HOMA IR index were carried out in Parahita Laboratory at Sidoarjo. Statistical analysis using independent t-test was used to determine differences in fasting blood glucose, fasting insulin and HOMA IR between two groups and linear regression to analyze the effect of obesity on insulin resistance with a significance value < 0.05.The results showed mean scores of BMI obese and non-obese group were 25.6 and 15.96 respectively, the mean value of BMI z score among obese group and non-obese was 3.7 and-0.6 respectively; the abdominal circumference value of obese and non obese group consist of 84.95 and 59.48 cm. Statistical analysis showed no significant difference in fasting blood glucose levels, but fasting insulin levels and HOMA IR between 2 groups differed significantly. Obesity (BMI and abdominal circumference) influenced incidence of insulin resistance. Furthermore, obese and non-obese groups have different sensitivity of insulin response but had the same blood glucose level; obese group had higher HOMAIR than non-obese group. So, there needs an intervention to reduce obesity at an early age to reduce the risk of insulin resistance in pre-pubertal age.