Childhood obesity in association with eating habits & lifestyles among Saudi students in low socioeconomic status: a cross sectional study

Abstract

Aims: Obesity is an issue that affects all levels of society with high rates of childhood obesity increasing in developing countries, due to poor meal quality, lack of awareness and physical inactivity. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on 28 children over the age of six. The main objectives of the study are to assess their weights using anthropometric measurements and to evaluate their eating habits and lifestyles using an interview based questionnaire. Results: The results show that 50% of the children are overweight or obese, with significantly low to medium awareness of nutrition, and high consumption of sweets and sugary drinks. Conclusions: Our findings confirm that eating habits and poor lifestyles contribute to obesity and weight, which suggests that further research should be conducted on children via schools to identify the factors associated with obesity in both children and adolescents in Saudi Schools and design health promoting programmes accordingly.