PREVALENCE AND RISK FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH OVERWEIGHT AND OBESITY AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN DHARAN SUB-METROPOLITAN CITY

Abstract

A community based cross sectional study was carried out to assess the prevalence and associated risk factors of overweight and obesity in adolescents of Dharan sub-metropolitan city. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data of 210 adolescents. Anthropometric measurements were used to determine prevalence. Dietary intake was assessed using 24-hour dietary recall and food frequency questionnaire. Data collected was analyzed using WHO Anthroplus v1.0.4, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences v25 and Microsoft Excel 2019. The prevalence of overweight and obese adolescents of the study stood for 18.1% and 6.2% respectively. Overweight/obesity, were more prevalent in the aged 10-12, whereas 13 – 14 age group had lowest prevalence. Similarly, 14.29% and 10.71% of the adolescents of aged 16 to 18 were overweight and obese. No significant difference was observed BAZ among total boys and girl. It was found that 31.9% of the adolescents did not perform adequate physical activity, whereas 68.1% performed adequately. Calorie intake in all the age and gender groups were low as per the requirements except for girls aged 10-12, whereas all age and gender groups met the requirements of protein and carbohydrate intake. The intake of protein was found to be significantly associated with BAZ. Factors like father’s education, family income, number of adolescent at home, number of siblings, sleeping hours, consumption of alcohol, knowledge on nutrition and protein adequacy was found to be statistically significant (p value < 0.05) with overweight/ obesity. Overweight among adolescents has emerged as an alarming issue.