Abstract
BackgroundSubstance use and weight gain among youth increase the risk for future disease. As such, the purpose of this study is to examine how many Canadian youth are currently failing to meet substance use and weight gain related public health guidelines.MethodsData from the 2010–11 Youth Smoking Survey were used to examine grade 9 to 12 students meeting seven different guidelines by sex and by grade.ResultsAmong Canadian youth, 8.8% were current smokers, 18.8% were current marijuana users, 25.5% were current binge drinkers, 22.5% were considered overweight or obese, 31.2% did not meet physical activity guidelines, 89.4% exceeded sedentary behaviour guidelines, and 93.6% reported inadequate fruit and vegetable intake. The mean number of risk factors per student was 2.9 (±1.2); only 0.5% of youth reported having none of the risk factors.ConclusionStudents rarely met all seven public health guideline examined, and the vast majority of actually reported having two or more modifiable risk factors for disease.
Highlights
Substance use and weight gain among youth increase the risk for future disease
We identified that 22.5% (n = 276,100) of Canadian youth were considered overweight or obese for their age and sex, with males being substantially more likely than females to be considered overweight or obese (p < 0.001)
Given the health and social effects associated with high risk substance use, and that substance abuse among adults is typically established during adolescence [10,39,40,41], the large number of Canadian youth we identified as being frequent substance users suggests that there is a need for ongoing and improved substance use prevention within Canadian secondary schools
Summary
Substance use and weight gain among youth increase the risk for future disease. As such, the purpose of this study is to examine how many Canadian youth are currently failing to meet substance use and weight gain related public health guidelines. The most recent evidence presented by Alamian and Paradis [27] are based on longitudinal data, there are four limitations associated with that evidence which warrant new research in this domain: 1) the most recent wave of data examined were from 2004–2005, as such those data are no longer as informative for informing current prevention programming as data from 2010; 2) they examined ever use of tobacco and ever use of alcohol whereas current tobacco or current alcohol use may be more informative, 3) due to changes in guidelines, the measures for tobacco, alcohol use, sedentary behaviour and PA were not operationally defined according to definitions within the current prevention guidelines; and 4) the according to Statistics Canada [30], the NLSCY was only nationally representative to the original sample population (Cycle 1) These earlier reports are important [27,28,29], additional investigation into this issue is warranted with the most current nationally representative youth data available
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