Assessment of Eating Behaviors and Nutritional Status of Adolescents: A School-based Cross-Sectional Study Conducted in Lahore, Pakistan
Abstract
![](/public/site/graph.png)
Healthy eating patterns, if adopted early in life, support the growth, learning ability, and overall health of children and adolescents. The latter are more vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies due to their inappropriate food choices, peer pressure, unhealthy eating habits, and increased nutritional demand. The current study aimed to determine the degree of compliance of adolescents to the recommended dietary guidelines. A multi-stage stratified cluster sampling design was used to conduct qualitative research during the period January-August 2019. The study population comprised the students of public and private high schools in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. A semi-structured questionnaire that focused on the general dietary intake and physical activity patterns in school setting was filled by interview technique. The determinants of eating behaviors were investigated using descriptive statistics and chi-square. As per the BMI percentiles, 46.2% (651) were underweight, 2.3% (33) were obese, and 6.2% (88) were overweight. The data indicated that the eating behaviors of participants did not follow the recommendations of the Food Guide Pyramid (FGP). However, on a scale of 1-10, it was found that family and advertisements have the highest impact on the food choices of adolescents with the scores of 6.5±2.69 and 6.1±2.77, respectively. The study concluded that adolescents in Lahore do not follow a healthy eating pattern. Nutritional education and interventions must be prioritized to promote healthy eating habits among adolescents.
Downloads
![](https://journals.umt.edu.pk/public/journals/6/article_2520_cover_en_US.jpg)
Copyright (c) 2022 Ayesha Amjad, Azmat Ullah Khan, Savaiba Khattak, Saira Khalid, Arooj Abid
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
BSR follows an open-access publishing policy and full text of all published articles is available free, immediately upon publication of an issue. The journal’s contents are published and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) license. Thus, the work submitted to the journal implies that it is original, unpublished work of the authors (neither published previously nor accepted/under consideration for publication elsewhere). On acceptance of a manuscript for publication, a corresponding author on the behalf of all co-authors of the manuscript will sign and submit a completed the Copyright and Author Consent Form.