Nutrition Balanced Guideline: Irregular Weight Monitoring Is Associated with Overweight-Obesity in Adolescents (High School Students) at Bekasi.

Abstract

Adolescents are susceptible to nutritional problems. One of the problems in adolescents is the incompatibility of actions related to food selection. An unbalanced diet will affect nutritional status; hence a guide is needed in food selection by considering the principles of balanced nutrition. This study aims to determine the relationship of balanced nutrition practices with obesity in adolescents. This was a cross sectional study. The independent variables in this study were food diversity, hygiene behavior, physical activity and body weight monitoring while the dependent variable was obesity. The independent vaiables reflect the four principle of balanced nutritional guidance. The subjects of this study were 192 high school students. Data were collected by using Semi Quantitative-Food Frequency Questionnaire (SQ-FFQ) to assess food consumption, IPAQ short form to measured physical activities, and questionnaire to assess hygiene and weight monitoring behavior. Results showed that there were 19.8 percent overweight and obesity, 100 percent of dietary consumption was inconsistent with Balanced Nutritional Guidance, 53.6 percent had good hygiene behavior, 52.1 percent had medium physical activity and 63 percent had irregular weight monitoring. There was a relationship between weight monitoring and obesity (p<0.05) and no relationship with other principles. In conclusion adolescents had poor pattern of food consumption. Irregular weight monitoring was associated with overweight-obesity. It is suggested that adolescents have regular weight monitoring to control their nutritional status.