Comparison of socioeconomic status of parents and Body Mass Index of their in-school adolescents in Cross River state, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Overweight and obesity as well as underweight in adolescence are risk factors of chronic diseases that occur in adulthood. The objective of this research was to assess the Body Mass Index of in-school adolescents and its relationship to socioeconomic status of their parents.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of 454 adolescents aged 10-19 years selected from five secondary schools using multistage sampling technique. A semi-structured interviewer questionnaire was used to collect relevant information from the adolescents and their anthropometric measurement to determine their Body Mass Index. Their Body Mass Index was categorized into obese, overweight, normal and underweight using the International Obesity Task Force reference. Analysis was done using IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences, version 20.1.
Results: The prevalence of obesity, overweight, and underweight among the adolescents was 7.7%, 1.1% and 32.8% respectively. None of the students in the public schools was obese while 2.1% of the adolescents were obese in the private schools. Adolescents in public schools had a higher percentage of underweight (65.4%) compared to those in private schools (34.5%) and this was found statistically significant (p<0.001). There was an overall higher prevalence of overweight and obesity among the females than found among the males. This was also the case for adolescents from higher socio-economic parents. These differences were found to be statistically significant (p<0.001).
Conclusion: The Body Mass Index status of the in-school adolescents studied was found to increase with increased socioeconomic status of their parents. This underscores the need for sensitization of in-school adolescents to see the need of knowing their nutritional status and ways to avoid the consequences of abnormal Body Mass Index.