The association between dietary pattern and weight status among elementary school students in Taiwan

Abstract

The prevalence of childhood and adolescence obesity are rising year by year. The report of WHO indicates that childhood obesity may have impacts on health, for example, low self‐esteem, depression and an increased risk of chronic diseases in later life. There are several reasons contribute to childhood obesity, including changes in dietary pattern and lifestyle, and then cause to increase of energy intake and decease of energy depletion. The factors that affect dietary intake are age, physical activities, socioeconomic factors and so on. However, there are no research investigate the association between dietary pattern and weight status among elementary students in Taiwan. ‘Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan (NAHSIT)’ is to build the national investigation mechanism and to monitor the change trend of nutritional and health status in the whole population in Taiwan and to be the references on nutrition and health policies deciding for government. In this research, it will use the questionnaires of basic information, 24 hours recall, dietary habits, physical activities and anthropometric data of 2012 ‘NAHSIT’, and use the age, gender, living area, physical activities and socioeconomic factors as covariances. Besides, dietary pattern will be conducted by principal component analysis (PCA). Result showed that the prevalence of overweight and obesity were 27.58% and girls had higher obesity rate than boys. Besides, obesity rate had positive association with age and negative association with parental education level. Daily mean calories intake was 1864.1 ± 665.4 kcal. In addition, it also showed that the intake of vitamin E and calcium were below Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) and sodium was over‐intake. In conclusion, Taiwanese elementary school students had high prevalence of overweight and obesity and poor dietary intake and the relationship between obesity and dietary intake is worth to discuss.