Prevalences of overweight and obesity and their association with physical activity pattern among Iranian adolescents aged 12–17 years

Abstract

Objective: The objective of the present study was to investigate the prevalences of overweight and obesity and their association with physical activity pattern among adolescents in northern Iran. Design: A cross-sectional study. Setting: Babol, northern Iran. Subjects: A representative sample of 1200 adolescents aged 12-17 years was recruited. All selected adolescents were interviewed, their leisure-time and sport physical activities were collected by a standard Baecke questionnaire and their height and weight were measured by standard methods. The diagnosis of overweight and obesity was determined by comparing BMI values with the BMI index for age and sex percentiles set by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2000. Results: The prevalences of overweight and obesity were 15?1 % and 8?3 %, respectively. The proportion of obesity was significantly higher in boys than in girls (10?2 % v. 6?5 %, P 5 0?028). Overall, the levels of high, moderate and low leisure-time physical activity were 2?9 %, 79?4 % and 17?7 %, respectively. The corresponding levels of high, moderate and low sport physical activity were 17?4 %, 75?2 % and 7?4 %. The levels of leisure-time and sport physical activities were significantly higher among the boys than the girls (P , 0?001). There was also a significant association of studying in private schools and playing computer games with overweight/obesity (P , 0?001). Moderate leisure-time physical activity was unexpectedly associated with a greater risk of overweight/obesity compared with the low level (P 5 0?002). Conclusions: The findings indicate a high prevalence of overweight/obesity in these Iranian adolescents, particularly the boys. The influence of physical activity and diet on overweight/obesity requires further prospective studies.

Screen time and childhood overweight/obesity: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Most available studies reported that screen time plays an important role in childhood overweight/obesity; however, numerous studies may only focused on the association between a single type of screen time and childhood overweight/obesity (Ajie & Chapman‐Novakofski, ; Guy et al, ; G. Zhang et al, ), which unlikely to reveal the influence of overall screen time on overweight/obesity. In addition, a study that included 13,094 youth produced the result that the combination of TV viewing and computer use was not as consistently associated with overweight/obesity as was TV viewing alone (Hajian‐Tilaki & Heidari, ). Thus, it is essential to study the effects of the different types of screen time as risk factors on childhood overweight/obesity.…”

Impact of body size and physical activity during adolescence and adult life on overall and cause-specific mortality in a large cohort study from Iran

“…In Iran, about 10% of adolescents have the metabolic syndrome [16], 23% are overweight or obese and 18% engage in low levels of physical activity [17]. In a previous publication from this study, we showed that adolescent and early adulthood obesity were associated with the risk of diabetes in adulthood [18].…”

Comparing the role of standard references on the prevalence of Iranian children and adolescents' overweight and obesity: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…A total number of 155,839 children and adolescents up to 20 years old were included from the selected studies. [91011131417181920212223242526272829303132333435363738394041424344454647484950515253545556575859606162636465666768697071727374757677787980818283848586] Comparison of the overall estimates in different age group represents that the overweight and obesity prevalence for children between 6- and 12-year-old is minimum for boys and girls, but in all age categories the overweight girls prevalence are higher than boys while the obesity boys prevalence are higher than girls [Table 1]. …”