Association between obesity, behavioural and environmental factors among adolescents attending private colleges in Brazzaville
International Journal of Development Research
Association between obesity, behavioural and environmental factors among adolescents attending private colleges in Brazzaville
Received 03rd June, 2019; Received in revised form 26th July, 2019; Accepted 09th August, 2019; Published online 28th September, 2019
Copyright © 2019, Moussouami Simplice Innocent et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Introduction: The purpose of this study is to estimate the prevalence of obesity among students attending private secondary schools in Brazzaville and identify factors that contribute to weight gain. Methods: This was a cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study of 1030 students in private schools. Data analysis was performed using Epi Info7 and SPSS 2.2 software. Pearson's Chi2 test, varied and multi-varied uni logistic regression were used. Results: among the 1030 students who responded to the questionnaire, 15.3% were overweight, and 5.1% were obese. The age of the subjects ranged from 13 to 18 years with a median of 15 years; 57.1% were female. Factors associated with obesity/overweight were: fruit and vegetable consumption, the number of daily meals, snacking, video games, extracurricular sports and walking to school. Conclusion: The study showed a high prevalence of obesity and overweight in private schools in Brazzaville and will allow the implementation of management strategies for these students.
