Prevalence and socio-demographic factors associated with overweight and obesity among adolescents in Kaski district, Nepal

Background: The occurrence of overweight and obesity is at increasing level in low income and developing countries and is not limited to high income countries only. Adolescent is at high risk for its development. Rationale: To find out the prevalence and associated socio-demographic factors responsible for overweight and obesity which are unrecognized health problems and are risk factors for non-communicable disease. To date no study has been done focusing overweight and obesity in Kaski district, Nepal and very few in context of Nepal. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity and their association with socio demographic factors among higher secondary school level adolescents in Kaski district, Nepal. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in Kaski district among 838 adolescents randomly selected from 12 schools using multistage cluster sampling from 24th October to 4th December, 2013 using self-administered questionnaire and anthropometric assessment. BMI for age was calculated using WHO Anthroplus software v.1.0.4 using cut off value of 85th percentile and 95th percentile for overweight and obesity respectively. Statistical analysis was done using SPSSv. 16. Results: The study revealed 8.1% prevalence of overweight and obesity of among higher secondary level school adolescents with 5.8% overweight and 2.3% obese. Urban respondents were found significantly more overweight/obese than village respondents (p=0.001, OR=2.360). Adolescents of ethnic/indigenous group (p<0.001, OR=2.56), fathers' with government job (p=0.011, OR=2.08), mothers' with teaching job (p=0.038, OR=2.57) and average monthly family income more than or equal to NRs.25, 000 (p=0.007, OR=1.97) were found significantly more overweight and obese. But, other socio demographic factors like gender (p=0.26), birth order (p=0.404) and parents' education (p=0.121 for fathers' and p=0.282 for mothers' education) weren't significantly associated. Conclusion: Overweight and obesity among adolescents was found high with significant association with permanent residence, ethnicity, parents' occupation and average monthly family income.