A STUDY ON OVERWEIGHT PROMOTING DIETARY FACTORS AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN IN AN URBAN AREA OF ANDHRA PRADESH

Abstract

Introduction: Now a day, obesity has become a chronic disorder affecting the large population than any other disease in the world. It mostly affects the adult population but children and adolescent are also prone to develop obesity. the present study was undertaken among school children with the objective of finding out the relative proportion of underweight and overweight among study subjects on the basis of BMI and influence of some selected dietary factors on BMI status.

Methods: The cross sectional study was done in 4 public schools located in Guntur city selected by random selecting technique using purposive sampling procedure keeping in view the operational feasibility. Total 570 male students in the age group of 13-15 were included in the study .The study was conducted during 0ctober and November 2008.

Results: The proportion of overweight (13.86%) among study subjects was more than underweight (11.93%). The daily consumption rates of different energy dense foods found to vary from 17.54 % for butter to 25.44% for fast food while the rate of daily and week The practices of eating until plate is finished and eating more fried food showed wide variation among different BMI categories. The difference were statistically highly significant. The rate of daily and weekly consumption together varied between 59.65% for butter and 67.72 % for sweets.

Conclusion: The result of the present study shows that the diet habit like eating sweets and eating behaviour like snacking and eating more fried food were significantly associated with high prevalence of overweight among school children. So nutrition education should be given in schools regarding this to prevent occurrence of life style diseases in future