Prevelance of flatfoot in secondary school students and its relationship with obesity

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the flatfoot prevalence of secondary school students and to investigate the relationship between obesity. As the population of thestudy consists of 28540 students between the ages of 10 and 18 living in Yeşilyurt and Battalgazi districts of Malatya province, the sample consisted of 3493 people,1593 women and 1903 men. It was found that, 16.7% of women (9.8% flexible, 6.9% rigid), 16.1% of men (9.3% flexible, 6.8% rigid) had pes planus. It was determinedthat 19.6% of the participants had problems in their feet and 9.7% of them had flexible, 6.9% had rigid pes planus and 3% had high arch. It was observed that 31.2% ofoverweight participants were flexible and 15.6% were rigid pes planus while 21.2% of the obese participants were flexible and 37.7% were rigid pes planus. The meanof visual analogue scale (VAS) scores in which the participants evaluated the pain in the lower part of the leg during the day was 6.0±.08, in students with flexible pesplanus and 8.5±1.11 in students with rigid pes planus. As a result of the study, no significant relationship was found between gender and flatfoot, but there was a significantrelationship between flatfoot and obesity in all age groups.