Abstract
Through public health studies, specifically on child obesity modeling, research scholars have been attempting to identify the factors affecting obesity using suitable statistical techniques. In recent years, regression, structural equation modeling (SEM) and partial least squares (PLS) regression have been the most widely employed statistical modeling techniques in public health studies. The main objective of this study to apply the Taguchi method to introduce a new pattern rather than a model for analyzing the body mass index (BMI) of children as a representative of childhood obesity levels mainly related to social media use. The data analysis includes two main parts. The first part entails selecting significant indicators for the proposed framework by applying SEM for primary and high school students separately. The second part introduces the Taguchi method as a realistic and reliable approach to exploring which combination of significant variables leads to high obesity levels in children. AMOS software (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA) was applied in the first part of data analysis and MINITAB software (Minitab Inc., State College, PA, USA) was utilized for the Taguchi experimental analysis (second data analysis part). This study will help research scholars view the data and a pattern rather than a model, as a combination of different factor levels for target factor optimization.
Highlights
In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that around 170 million children below the age of 18 were suffering from obesity and overweight [1]
Of child body mass index (BMI) variation is dependent on family socio-economic status, family child-feeding behavior, children’s unhealthy food intake, children’s social media use, children’s physical activity and children’s sleep amount
This figure represents a pattern which indicates that families with moderate socio-economic status and with children who always have unhealthy food intake, use social media more than 4 h per day, have no physical activity and sleep more than 9 h per day have children with the highest BMI
Summary
In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that around 170 million children below the age of 18 were suffering from obesity and overweight [1]. Some researchers consider this concern regarding children as one of the greatest and most crucial threats to public health in the last twenty years [2,3]. Previous studies on childhood overweight and obesity modeling illustrate that the main factors are family environment and children’s lifestyle. A number of studies indicate that family environment is an important determinant of children’s lifestyle [5] and both have an impact on child BMI level
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