Obesity among Adolescent School Going Children in East Zone of Coimbatore: It’s Association with Life Style Factors

Abstract

Obesity has been a major health concern and it's a worrying epidemic and there is an urge need to examine adolescent obesity and the life style factors that are associated with obesity. In this present study, various life style factors such as dietary pattern, physical activity, sleeping pattern, consumption of junk foods and frequency of eating outside foods, eating while watching television, sleeping pattern, usage of gadgets and habit of exercising were investigated. The aim of this study is to determine the association between life style pattern of adolescents and obesity. The study was carried out in 11,330 adolescent in the age group of 13-15 years from different sectors of school (Government Schools, Government Aided Schools, Corporation Schools and Private Schools). Among which there were 953 obese adolescent school children which includes 467 boys and 486 girls who belongs to different socio economic background. This study was a questionnaire based study, only those adolescent children who volunteered were included in the study. All the respondents were introduced about the topic of study and the need to collect sensitive information and were promised confidentiality of the entries. Dietary pattern like type of diet, regular meal timing, skipping breakfast, consumption of snacks, fast foods, frequency of eating outside, eating while watching television, regular sleeping pattern, usage of computer gadgets, habit of exercising were having remarkable effect and positively associated (significant at 5% level) with the occurrence on obesity. Therefore, strategies for hindrance of obesity, encouragement for healthy lifestyles are necessary to prevent the start and early detection of adolescent health problems. The data suggest that there is a significant association between the life style pattern and obesity among the selected participants.