Dietary and Lifestyles Factors Associated With Obesity Among Adolescents

The present investigation was carried out to assess the eating habits of 60 obese adolescents. The subjects were selected by purposive random sampling method from 2 villages of Dharwad taluk. A self structured questionnaire was developed to elicit the information about obese adolescents on various aspects including general information and dietary intake. The results revealed that About 40 per cent of subjects belonged to 13-14 years of age. Almost equal percentage of subjects had vegetarian and non-vegetarian food habits (38.33% and 36.67%, respectively) and only 25 per cent of the subjects belonged to eggetarian category. Majority of the adolescents had the habit of eating out side foods (88.33%). Cereals, fats and oils, sugar and jaggery were consumed by all the adolescents (100%) every day. Pulses, milk and milk products and other vegetables were consumed by 76 per cent of adolescents every day, Majority of them consumed ischolar_mains and tubers (83.33%) every day. Per cent adequacy of boys and girls in case of pulses (99.61 vs 94.05), fats and oils (98.42 vs 100.83) were at par with the SDA. Per cent adequacy of nutrients for boys and girls in case of protein (108.87 vs 120.77), fat (104.87 vs 105.74) were higher than the RDA. Per cent adequacy of iron, β carotene, riboflavin, ascorbic acid, niacin, vit B₆ were lower than the RDA (64.05 vs 84.84, 17.56 vs 28.34, 44.46 vs 50.88, 41.22 vs 46.67, 81.01 vs 90.03 and 7.77 vs 8.13, respectively). The duration of the light activities were higher than moderate activities (21.10 vs 2.90 hr, respectively). Majority of the subjects were belonged to overweight category (66.67%), followed by likely to be obese (21.67%) and obese category (11.66%). various unhealthy dietary and life style factors and physical in activity found to contribute obesity among adolescents.