Determinants of overweight and obesity among adolescent students in North Karnataka

INTRODUCTION: Globally, childhood and adolescent obesity prevalence has reached alarming levels with grave public health consequences. It is believed that a sedentary lifestyle and the consumption of calorie-dense and low-nutritional-value foods are two of the most significant etiological factors contributing to the rising prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity in developing countries. OBJECTIVE: The main objective was to study the contributing factors (determinants) of obesity among adolescent students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2019 to October 2019 among 1050 schoolchildren from different schools in Belagavi. The results used for comparison were based on descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, and multiple logistic regression analysis using the statistical package for the social science version 22.0. The significance level of all the tests was set at P ≤ 0.05. RESULTS: The study results revealed that age, family history of diabetes, family history of hypertension, physical activity (running, swimming), number of hours spent with mobile every day, number of hours spent with a computer every day, frequency of foodstuffs consumed by a child (fried food, bakery items, sweets, and fast foods) were statistically significant or associated with overweight and obesity (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The study concluded that high-socioeconomic status, physical inactivity, frequency of consumption of fast food, inactive outdoor games, and poor nutritional knowledge were significantly associated with overweight and obesity. Therefore, there is a pressing need for cost-effective school-based strategies and appropriate policy changes in developing countries like India to stem the rising tide of overweight and obesity among adolescents.