Socio-demographic and lifestyle factors associated with overweight in a representative sample of 11-15 year olds in France: Results from the WHO-Collaborative Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) cross-sectional study

Abstract

BackgroundThe prevalence of overweight in children and adolescents is high and overweight is associated with poor health outcomes over short- and long-term. Lifestyle factors can interact to influence overweight. Comprehensive studies linking overweight concomitantly with several demographic and potentially-modifiable lifestyle factors and health-risk behaviours are limited in adolescents - an age-group characterized by changes in lifestyle behaviours and high prevalence of overweight. Thus, the objective of the current study was to examine the association of overweight with several socio-demographic and lifestyle variables simultaneously in a representative sample of adolescents.MethodsA nationally representative sample of 11-15 year-olds (n = 7154) in France participated as part of the WHO-Collaborative Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. Students reported data on their age, height, weight, socio-demographic variables, lifestyle factors including nutrition practices, physical activity at two levels of intensity (moderate and vigorous), sedentary behaviours, as well as smoking and alcohol consumption patterns using standardized HBSC protocols. Overweight (including obesity) was defined using the IOTF reference. The multivariate association of overweight with several socio-demographic and lifestyle factors was examined with logistic regression models.ResultsThe adjusted odds ratios for the association with overweight were: 1.80 (95% CI: 1.37-2.36) for low family affluence; 0.73 (0.60-0.88) for eating breakfast daily; 0.69 (0.56-0.84) for moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA); and 0.71 (0.59-0.86) for vigorous physical activity (VPA). Significant interactions between age and gender as well as television (TV) viewing and gender were noted: for boys, overweight was not associated with age or TV viewing; in contrast, for girls overweight correlated negatively with age and positively with TV viewing. Fruit and vegetable intake, computer and video-games use, smoking and alcohol consumption were not associated with overweight.ConclusionsIn multivariate model, family affluence, breakfast consumption and moderate to vigorous as well as vigorous physical activity were negatively associated with overweight. These findings extend previous research to a setting where multiple risk and protective factors were simultaneously examined and highlight the importance of multi-faceted approaches promoting physical activity and healthy food choices such as breakfast consumption for overweight prevention in adolescents.

Overweight and obesity prevalence in Bulgarian schoolchildren: A comparison between two international standards

“…The established problems among the schoolchildren in Bulgaria are similar to those observed in recent decades in some of the European countries as well as in other countries worldwide as an increase in overweight among schoolchildren has been observed [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] . The outcomes resulting from the nationally representative survey in 1998 showed high incidence of overweight among schoolchildren, calculated according to the previous indices and criteria of WHO 2 from 1995, and reflecting a period of economic problems in Bulgaria 9 .…”

Skipping breakfast and associated factors among Brazilian adolescents

“…Regarding gender, as in this study, other studies have observed higher prevalence of breakfast skipping among girls [13,38,40]. One possible explanation for this relationship may be dissatisfaction with body image and the intention to lose weight due to media pressure and desire for thinness [32,41].…”

“…These differences might be explained in part by the criteria for classifying breakfast skipping. Some studies have assessed frequency groups of breakfast consumption [5,11,32,[35][36][37], while others are based on 24-hour recall [7,26], and still others classified as daily or not daily consumption [38,39], as in this study. This criterion was used because it had the best discriminatory power in this population, and because higher frequency of breakfast consumption is desirable, as it has protective effects, particularly against obesity [15,37].…”

Systematic review of sedentary behaviour and health indicators in school-aged children and youth: an update

“…The remaining 9 studies for screen time, 13 studies for TV viewing, and 1 study for total sedentary behaviour reported null findings. Within 19 studies, significant associations with body composition were not observed across all sex groups (Dupuy et al 2011;Hardy et al 2012;Ismailov and Leatherdale 2010;Jones et al 2010;Mejia et al 2013;Nigg et al 2011;Rey-Lopez et al 2012;Sigmundova et al 2014;Suglia et al 2013;Vaezghasemi et al 2012), ethnic groups (Saab et al 2011), age groups (de Jong et al 2013;Seo and Niu 2014;Zhang et al 2012), geographical locations (Taber et al 2012;Tambalis et al 2013), days of the week (Liou et al 2010), or measures of body composition (Kuriyan et al 2012;Sluyter et al 2013). Inconsistent findings were observed for doing homework and reading and primarily null findings were observed for accelerometer-derived sedentary time, breaks, and bouts as well as computer use, and video game use with body composition.…”