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To assess the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children living in the Netherlands and compare the findings with the Third and Fourth National Growth Studies carried out in 1980 and 1997, respectively.

Data were obtained from the child health care system. International cut-off points for body mass index (BMI) were used to determine overweight and obesity. Cases were weighted for ethnicity and municipality size in such a way that the sample matched the distribution in the general population. The LMS method was used to calculate the age-related distribution of BMI, and the prevalence was calculated from the fitted distribution.

Data on 90 071 children aged 4–16 years were routinely collected by 11 community health services during 2002–2004.

On average, 14.5% of the boys and 17 …