DETERMINANTS OF OVERWEIGHT AND/OR OBESITY AMONG ADOLESCENT STUDENTS IN WORABE TOWN SCHOOLS, SILTE ZONE, CENTRAL ETHIOPIA REGION, ETHIOPIA, 2024.

Abstract

Background: From 1990 to 2022, the percentage of children and adolescents aged 5–19 years living with obesity increased four-fold from 2% to 8% globally. Obesity is one side of the double burden of malnutrition, and today more people are obese than underweight in every region except the South-East Asia Region. Once considered a problem only in high-income countries, today some middle-income countries have the highest prevalence of overweight or/ and obesity worldwide. So this study was designed to identify determinants of overweight and/or obesity among adolescent in both government and private schools. Objective; to identify predictors of overweight or/and obesity among adolescents in Worabe town schools, 2024. Method; School based unmatched case control study was conducted by taking 300 school adolescents (100 cases and 200 controls) from March 2/2024 to May 30/2024. Identified the total cases and controls by conducting survey from selected schools, Cases were adolescents with BMI-for-age Z scores above >1SD and Control were adolescents with BMI-for –age Z scores between −2SD < BAZ ≤ +1SD. Lastly the final study subject from the total cases and controls were selected by using simple random sampling techniques and the data was collected using semi structured, pretested interviewer administered questionnaire from 100 cases and 200 controls and analyzed on Stata 14. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to calculate odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals to estimate the association between independent variables and dependent variable and variables with p-value <0.05 considered as statistically significant. The results were report as Odds Ratio (OR) and 95% Confidence Interval (CI). Results: This study showed that family size less than or equal five [AOR=2.30, 95%CI (1.19-4.46)], high wealth status [AOR=3.40, 95CI (1.47-7.89)], daily total physical activities greater or equal to 60 minutes [AOR=0.15, 95%CI (0.07-0.30) and good nutritional knowledge status [AOR=0.19, 95%CI (0.08-0.460)] were significantly associated with adolescents’ overweight and obesity. Conclusion; family size less than or equal five, high wealth status, physical inactivity and low nutritional knowledge status were the risk factors of adolescents’ overweight and/ or obesity. Recommendation: interventions on improving nutritional knowledge and feeding practice and doing physical activities are important for the control of overweight and/or obesity among adolescent’s students setting.