Abstract
Objective: Undesirable lifestyle behaviors are associated with many adverse health outcomes. This study revisited the lifestyle behaviors, dietary habits, and overweight/obesity status of Saudi adolescents from Riyadh during the year 2019/2020. We report on the rationale, design, and methodology of the current study and provide preliminary findings of the changes that occurred between the two cross-sectional studies within the span of a ten-year period. Methods: A comparison was made between two cross-sectional studies, one conducted in 2009/2010 and the other in 2019/2020, using the same design, methods, and instruments. A multistage stratified cluster random sampling technique was used to select adolescents attending public and private secondary schools. Measurements included demographics, weight, height, waist circumference, physical activity (using valid questionnaire and accelerometer), sedentary time, sleep duration, and dietary habits. Results: The total number of participants was 1262 adolescents, of which 52.4% were male, with a mean (SD) age of 16.4 ± 0.95 years. About 41% of paternal and 39.1% of maternal education levels were university degrees. Over 37% of the families earned more than SAR 20,000/month. Body mass index and waist circumference of males was larger than that of females and the overall prevalence of overweight/obesity was 40.5% with significance (p < 0.001) difference between males (47.3%) and females (32.8%). Between 2009/2010 and 2019/2020 datasets, there were significant changes in age (p < 0.001), waist circumference (p < 0.001), screen time (p < 0.001), moderate-intensity physical activity (p < 0.001), vigorous-intensity physical activity (p < 0.001), total physical activity (p < 0.001), and consumption of breakfast (p = 0.015) and fruits (p = 0.002). Conclusion: The most notable change between the two studies was a significant reduction in the prevalence of physical inactivity among Saudi adolescents, which was due to increased levels of moderate-intensity physical activity among Saudi females, as a result of recent positive sociopolitical changes occurring in the country over the past four years. The findings provided rich information that can be used to explore trends in overweight/obesity, lifestyle behaviors, and dietary habits among Saudi adolescents over the past ten-year period.
Highlights
The present study provides brief yet important information related to trends occurring in overweight/obesity and lifestyle behaviors among Saudi adolescents over the last tenyear period
Saudi adolescents during this research project and compared the findings with those obtained from a similar study conducted in 2009/2010
Most notable was the significant reduction in the prevalence of physical inactivity among Saudi adolescents, which was due to increased levels of moderate-intensity physical activity among young Saudi females
Summary
Physical inactivity, sedentary behaviors, and consumption of calorie-dense diets and sugar-sweetened beverages increased and became prevalent among the Saudi people This has definitely contributed to an increase in lifestyle-related NCDs in the country, including obesity, diabetes mellitus, coronary artery diseases, and hypertension [12,13,14,15,16]. The main findings of the ATLS data that were collected from Saudi Arabia indicated that Saudi adolescents aged 15–19 years old had high a prevalence of being overweight or obese, as well as increased physical inactivity and sedentary behaviors, insufficient sleep, and unhealthy dietary habits [10,23,28,37,38,39]. Making a comparison between the two studies over the course of a ten-year period provides indirect evidence on the changing trends in obesity prevalence and lifestyle behaviors of Saudi adolescents
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