Discussion and analysis on adolescent health literacy and risk factors related to obesity / 重庆医学

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the association between healthy literacy and body weight of adolescent. Methods A total of 6 812 adolescents accepting physical examination at the physical examination center of our hospital from Jan. 2013 to Oct. 2016 were selected as the study subjects. The information such as sex,self-rated health status and health behaviors of participants was collected,the participants were classified according to BMI(underweight, normal, overweight, obesity), furthermore all participants conducted the adolescent health literacy test,and the multivariable Logistic regression analysis was conducted to explore the association between adolescent health literacy and body weight by adjusting relevant concomitant variables. Results For 6 812 participants, the mean BMI was (18.73±3.82) kg/m2 , and the average score of health literacy test was (25.01 ± 6.08) points ; compared to the adolescents with health literacy test score <21 points(17. 3% obesity), those with health literacy test scores >30 points,the ones (12.4% obesity) were less likely to be obese;after controlling for the concomitant variables like self-rated health status, health behaviors, the adolescents with health literacy test scores over 30 had the lower possibility of body mass deficiency (RR=0.82 ,P<0.05) ,overweight (RR=0.81 ,P<0.05) or obesity (RR=0.93 ,P<0.05) ;in addition,the adolescents with irregular physical activities and drinking sugared beverages were more likely to be overweight or obesity. Conclusion Health literacy is closely linked with adolescent overweight or obesity,in order to avoid the health problems of the teenagers caused by obesity,it is suggested to strengthen the adolescent health literacy education.