The Relationship between Eating and Screen Viewing Behavior with Nutritional Status of Adolescents in Medan City

Abstract

Adolescents are vulnerable to experiencing malnutrition issues, both overnutrition and undernutrition. This study’s objective was to determine the relationship between eating and screen viewing behaviour and with nutritional status of adolescents. This study used a cross-sectional design with 145 adolescents chosen through the purposive sampling method. The samples were divided into three categories: early adolescents, middle adolescents, and late adolescents, and data on eating behaviour were obtained by using Adult Eating Behavior Questionnaire (AEBQ). The screen viewing behavior variable had two categories: low screen time and high screen time. Adolescent body mass index z-scores measured nutritional status. This study was conducted from June to August 2022. Results showed 5.5% underweight participants, 18.6% subject overweight participants, and 22.8% obese participants of the total participants. Spearman’s tests showed that there was a significant relationship between eating behaviour and nutritional status (p<0.05) only on two subscales of appetite traits (emotional overeating and food responsiveness) in early adolescents. Likewise, in late adolescents, there was a significant relationship between eating behaviour and nutritional status (p<0.05) only with emotional undereating. There was no significant relationship between screen viewing behaviour and nutritional status in all categories of adolescents. The highest prevalence of obesity was found in early adolescents, and it influenced the adolescent’s eating behavior such as emotional overeating. While in late adolescents, malnutrition cases were more or less common due to emotional undereating.