Avoid Junk Food and Start Cycling To School: An Easy Way to Manage Adolescent Obesity

Abstract

In a cross sectional study carried among 410 mid adolescent school children, about 20.5% of students were either obese or overweight. Due to their pre-occupation with either studies or tuition, majority (75.4%) of students had sports activity less than 1 hour daily. Children in nuclear families had higher risk for overweight (18.7%) as compared to joint families (11.1%) (x 2 =9.29 NS). Among adolescents, 1.7% of male children and 48% of female children had waist hip ratio above the normal level. The junk food consumption was universal (96%) due to its easy availability near school premises. The enjoyment of eating effects of advertisements, their delicious taste and peer pressure were the reasons for their high consumption. The daily calorie consumption with mean calorie intake was 2255+203 kcal and 227 (53.37%) had excess calorie consumption. Amongst the obese subjects, 84.6% were travelling either by bus or parental automobile, while 15.3% were either walking or cycling to school and association of obesity with the mode of conveyance was highly significant (x 2 =230.33). The simple measure of cycling to school and avoiding junk food consumption