We aimed to estimate the prevalence of overweight among Moroccan children and adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).

Fifty-eight patients with JIA according to the International League of Association of Rheumatology (ILAR) criteria were included consecutively in this study. The median age of patients was 11±3.3years (range 2–16). Overweight and obesity were defined by using the Body Mass Index (matched on age and sex and in reference to the French curves. Following data were collected: age, gender, age at onset, disease duration, subtype of JIA, functional disability (determined using the Moroccan version of Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire [CHAQ]), disease activity (assessed using a 0–10 visual analogical scale, the number of tender and swollen joints and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate); medical treatment and socioeconomic status of patients.

Twenty-four patients (41.4%) were overweight, 13 (22.4%) were obese and 21(36.2%) have normal. Patients with normal weight, obese and overweight represented successively 16.7%, 33.3% and 50% of systemic forms, 33.3%, 8.3% and 58.3% of seronegative polyarticular forms, 40%, 40% and 20% of seropositive polyarticular forms, 36.4%, 27.3% and 36.4% of persistent oligoarticular forms, 75%, 25% and 0% of extensive oligoarticular forms and 57.1%, 0% and 42.9% of forms with arthritis and enthesitis. In our data, there was no psoriatic arthritis. Overweight and obesity were more prevalent in older patients (P=0.01), with significant functional impairment (P=0.04) and with active disease (increased VAS) (P=0.005). There were no relationships with the subtype of JIA or with corticosteroid treatment (P=0.451).

Approximatively more than 60% of our patients were overweight. Severe functional limitation and active disease are the most correlated parameters with overweight. Better management of the activity and functional status of the disease seems to be of interest to prevent overweight in children with JIA. More studies with a larger number of patients seem to be necessary in order to confirm our results.