Prevalence of junk food consumption, overweight/obesity and self-rated health and fitness in high school adolescent girls: a cross sectional study in a deprived area of Qom

Background: Junk food intake is associated with high salt and high caloric intake and is one of the causes of overweight/obesity.

Objectives: To assess the prevalence of junk food consumption in snack times and its association with obesity and overweight in high school girl students in a deprived area of Qom. 

Method: A cross-sectional study was done in 638 high school girls who were selected using the multi-stage random sampling method. Overweight/obesity was measured using body mass index (BMI) and a questionnaire was used to ascertain the daily, weekly, monthly, three monthly and occasional junk food consumption. Chi square test and t-test were used to analyse the collected data.

Results: Mean age of participants was 15.77±0.73 years (range 15-18 years). The prevalence of underweight and overweight in study subjects was 23.2% and 11.4% respectively. BMI was not significantly related to some junk foods (p>0.05). Nevertheless, chocolate/soft drinks were associated by higher prevalence of underweight (75.8%) compared to overweight/obesity (57.6%).

Conclusions: Junk food consumption prevalence was high among the studied population of high school girls in a deprived area of Qom. There was no significant association between junk food consumption and BMI in this study population.

Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health, 2019; 48(3): 208-214