Factors on educational outcome for obesity prevention in female adolesecents in Korea

Abstract

Aims: High demands for academic achievement seem to lead adolescents to study more but exercise less, which eventually increases the prevalence of youth obesity whose health status might be poorer than a few decades ago. As a way of cutting off obesity prevalence in high school students in Korea, this study aims to measure the association between health status, daily behaviors and educational outcome. Methods: 276 female high school students in Seoul were enrolled to attend the obesity education in their physical classroom. Mean age was 17.2+/-0.5 years old. We obtained weight, height, waist circumference. The obese, overweight was defined as body mass index(BMI) more than 95th, 85th~94th percentile respectively for age and sex. All respondents were asked to answer a structured checklist of family history, past history, review of symptoms, and health-related behavior before the education class, and the other questionnaire was given twice to measure the obesity-related behaviors at the same time and one month later. Results: The number of adolescents with obesity was 33(12.0%). 20 (7.24%) subjects belonged to overweight group. 222(80.4%)students showed improvement on obesity-related behaviors after education. The number of physical health problems for recent 1 year was significantly correlated with the number of family history(r=0.20, p =0.001) and the number of current physical symptoms for recent 1 month(r=0.27, p <0.001) but also mental health symptoms for recent 1 month(r=0.36, p