Fast Food Intake and Prevalence of Overweight/Obesity in Students: do Eating Habits have a Differential Impact on Gender?

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Nowadays, eating fast food and spendingmoney on home away foods have been increased rapidly. As aresult, the prevalence rate of both fast food consumption andoverweight/obesity has been raised then previously.Material and methods: In an analytical cross-sectionalstudy, 106 students (50 males and 56 females) were selectedrandomly from two largest schools in Dhaka, center ofBangladesh, studying in primary, secondary, or middle schoolprograms in 2020 between ages 5 and 15. Data collectionwas conducted by a prepared fast food questionnaire andanthropometric measures including height, weight, and BodyMass Index (BMI). T-test and multivariate logistic regressionwere used for statistical analysis.Results: According to our results, overweight and obesityprevalence based on BMI in males was 24% (95% CI 7.99,8.44) and 34% (95% CI 8.22, 9.65) respectively while infemales was 12.5% (95% CI 8.07, 9.06) and 14.3% (95%CI 8.04, 9.7) respectively. According to our results, 40.56%(44% in males vs 37.5% in females) had at least one typeof fast food consumption in the recent week includingnoodles (31.8%), chips (37.1%), burger (15.9%), pizza(5.3%), sandwich (8.48%), rissole (19.08%), potato rissole(15.9%), fried chicken (10.6%), french fries (16.96), chickpea(11.66%), water balls (13.78%), mixed crispy (16.96%),cake (21.2%), pastry (10.6%), chocolate (12.72%), ice cream(15.9%), sweets (9.54%), and cold drinks (20.14%). Fast-foodconsumption for at least 3-4 days (OR 10.66, 95% CI = 2.26–50.24) and 5-6 days (OR 2.89, 95% CI = 1.14–7.32) in a weekwas related to BMI cut-off points for all males and females(P<0.05) respectively. But fast-food sources were related toBMI cut-off points for all males (P<0.05) only.Conclusion: The prevalence of fast food consumption andobesity/overweight in Bangladeshi students is high and sohealthy food and improved nutrition should be a high priorityon every school agenda.