ИСТИНА

Introduction. Post-Soviet socio-economic transformations have significantly changed the lifestyles in rural and northern regions of Russia. The integration of the rural population into a modernized environment, however, along with benefits, brings new risks, including the spread of nutrition-related "diseases of civilization". Metabolic disorders leading to obesity are among them. Until 2017, there were no unified criteria for evaluating the nutritional status of children in the Russian Federation. Therefore, information on the prevalence of obesity in schoolchildren of rural settlements and small towns remained disconnected. These conditions make it difficult to assess the rate of changes in remote northern areas and call for a study that compares data collected over several years in the same settlements and uses common criteria for evaluation. This study aimed to trace the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children aged 6-17 living in rural areas of some northern regions of the Russian Federation between 1994 and 2019. Materials and methods. The main data were collected in the course of annual medical check-ups of rural children 6-17 years old in Murmansk Oblast, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra (KMAO), the Komi Republic, and Komi-Permyak Okrug (KPO) in Perm Krai. Additionally, in KPO and KMAO we gathered information on the schoolchildren who are residents of the administrative centers of the districts (towns). The data was collected in the same localities and schools in 1994, 1997-08, 2005-09, and 2016-19 and contain records on 7548 subjects in total. The authors used WHO recommendations (which were accepted by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation in 2017) to identify the individuals with excess body weight. Results. There were no significant ethnic-specific differences found. The prevalence of excess body weight grew in all the localities where the study was conducted. In particular, subjects with excess body weight among schoolchildren living in Lovozero settlement (Saami and of other ethnic descent) constituted 8.54% in 1995-97, 10.85% in 2005, and 23.88% in 2019. Between region differences, as well as the level of urbanization differences (while comparing the residents of rural settlements and towns inside a region), are insubstantial. A general conclusion for all the study subgroups is that the prevalence of excess body weight was 4-7% (including 0.6-0.8% obesity) in 1994-98, 7.5-18.7% (obesity 0.9-5.0%) in 2005-09, and reached 23.9-26.6% (obesity 7.7-11.9%) in 2016-19. Discussion. Overweight and obesity spread rapidly in children in northern regions of Russia. One could see common negative patterns in Murmansk Oblast and the Komi Republic (Barents region), the north of the Urals and Western Siberia. As the data of 2019 showed, there is no difference in the prevalence of excess body weight between the schoolchildren residing in rural settlements, small towns, large industrial centers, and Moscow. We suppose that the processes among the children of Kola Saami, as well as in other northern regions of Russia, are driven by the "nutritional transition" of post-traditional societies. It implies a complex of economic, social, and cultural changes that ensured the general availability of food and the adopting a diet rich in saturated fats, sugars, and refined foods while lowering the levels of daily physical activity. Conclusion. The rapid spread of overweight and obesity among children of Russia appertains to the second decade of the 21st century. The geographic (the Arctic, non-Arctic North, Central Russia) and socio-economic (various levels of urbanization) factors do not play a major role in that negative dynamics.