Lifestyle Practices and Obesity in Nepalese Youth: A Cross-sectional Study

Combined effects of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, screen-based sedentary behavior, and sleep duration on South Korean adolescent obesity: a cross-sectional study

PURPOSE

This study examined the combined effects of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption, screen-based sedentary behaviors, and sleep duration on adolescent obesity.

METHODS

It followed a cross-sectional study design and conducted secondary analysis on data from 20,497 high school students who participated in the 17th (2021) Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey. This study underwent logistic regression analysis in complex sampling analysis.

RESULTS

The combinations of low and medium consumption of SSBs, excessive screen-based sedentary behaviors, and short sleep durations were associated with a 1.18 and 1.12 fold increased likelihood of obesity (95% confidence interval [CI]=1.03-1.35) and (95% CI=1.02-1.22), respectively. The combination of high SSB consumption, appropriate screen-based sedentary behaviors, and short sleep duration (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=1.15, 95% CI=1.01-1.31) and high SSB consumption, excessive screen-based sedentary behaviors, and short sleep duration (aOR=1.40, 95% CI=1.16-1.69) were associated with obesity.

CONCLUSION

Integrated and tailored programs considering combination patterns of SSB consumption, screen-based sedentary behaviors, and short sleep duration need to be developed for preventing adolescent obesity.

Health behavior and health needs of first-year medical and health sciences students

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the health behavior and health needs of medical and health sciences students in order to identify areas that need intervention. Materials and Methods: This descriptive study was conducted with 770 first-year university students. The data were collected with a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the Eating Attitudes Test. Body mass index was calculated. Results: Although, only 12.7% of the students were overweight or obese, 25.6% of the students perceived themselves to be overweight or obese. The students said that in the last week, 20.9% had breakfast 1 or 3 times, 5.7% ate no fruits at all, and 11.6% ate no vegetables at all. 48.1% of the students did not engage in any physical activity, and 83.2% spent more than 2 hours inactively in front of a screen. It was observed that 22.3% were current smokers. A propensity for eating behaviors disorder was found in 9.0%. Drinking energyboosting sports drinks 1-6 times in the last week (β: 3.286), smoking (β: 1.875) and eating few vegetable dishes in the last week (β: 0.484) were identified as factors that could be associated with a “tendency for eating behavior disorder.” Conclusion: We can conclude that nutritional issues, negative body weight perception, use of tobacco, and sedentary lifestyle are the main intervention and counselling areas for our study group.

Particulate air pollution and metabolic risk factors: Which are more prone to cardiac mortality

This study explored multiplex, country-level connections between a wide range of cardiac risk factors and associated mortality within the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries. The grey relational analysis (GRA) methodology is used to evaluate data from 2001 to 2018 to compute scores and rank countries based on cardiac mortality. Subsequently, we used the conservative (Min-Max) technique to determine which South Asian country contributes the most to cardiac mortality. The Hurwicz criterion is further applied for optimization by highlighting the risk factors with the highest impact on cardiac mortality. Empirical findings revealed that India and Nepal are the leading drivers of cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality among all SAARC nations based on the results of the GRA methodology. Moreover, the outcomes based on the Hurwicz criterion and the conservative criterion indicated that CVD mortality is considerably impacted by household air pollution from the combustion of solid fuel, with India as a potential contributor in the SAARC region. The outcomes of this research may enable international organizations and public health policymakers to make better decisions and investments within the SAARC region to minimize the burden of CVD while also strengthening environmentally sustainable healthcare practices.

Exploring Environmental Health Inequalities: A Scientometric Analysis of Global Research Trends (1970-2020)

Environmental health inequalities (EHI), understood as differences in environmental health factors and in health outcomes caused by environmental conditions, are studied by a wide range of disciplines. This results in challenges to both synthesizing key knowledge domains of the field. This study aims to uncover the global research status and trends in EHI research, and to derive a conceptual framework for the underlying mechanisms of EHI. In total, 12,320 EHI publications were compiled from the Web of Science core collection from 1970 to 2020. Scientometric analysis was adopted to characterize the research activity, distribution, focus, and trends. Content analysis was conducted for the highlight work identified from network analysis. Keyword co-occurrence and cluster analysis were applied to identify the knowledge domain and develop the EHI framework. The results show that there has been a steady increase in numbers of EHI publications, active journals, and involved disciplines, countries, and institutions since the 2000s, with marked differences between countries in the number of published articles and active institutions. In the recent decade, environment-related disciplines have gained importance in addition to social and health sciences. This study proposes a framework to conceptualize the multi-facetted issues in EHI research referring to existing key concepts.

Clustering of hypertension, diabetes and overweight/obesity according to socioeconomic status among Bangladeshi adults

The prevalences of hypertension, diabetes and overweight/obesity are increasing in most developing countries, including Bangladesh. Although earlier studies have investigated the factors associated with these three conditions, little is known about whether socioeconomic status is associated with their co-existence. This cross-sectional study analysed data from the 2011 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. An individual was considered hypertensive, diabetic and overweight/obese if their systolic/diastolic blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose concentration, and body mass index were ≥130/80 mmHg, ≥7 mmol/l and ≥23 kg/m2, respectively. Furthermore, individuals who reported taking anti-hypertensive and anti-diabetic drugs were also considered as hypertensive and diabetic, respectively. Two socioeconomic variables were investigated: education level and household wealth quintile. Descriptive analyses and multilevel logistic regression were conducted. Among the 7932 respondents (50.5% female) aged ≥35 years, the prevalences of hypertension, diabetes, overweight/obesity, any one condition and the co-existence of the three conditions were 48.0%, 11.0%, 25.3%, 60.9% and 3.6%, respectively. In adjusted analysis, individuals with secondary (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 1.8, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.2-2.8) and college or above (AOR: 3.6; 95% CI: 2.2-5.7) education levels had higher odds of the co-existence of all three conditions compared with those with no formal education. Similarly, compared with the poorest wealth quintile, the richer (AOR: 4.6; 95% CI: 2.2-9.4) and richest (AOR: 11.8; 95% CI: 5.8-24.1) wealth quintiles had higher odds of co-existence of these three conditions. Education and wealth quintile also showed significant relationships with each of the three conditions separately. In conclusion, in Bangladesh, hypertension, diabetes and overweight/obesity are associated with indicators of higher socioeconomic status. These findings highlight the importance of developing healthy lifestyle interventions (e.g. physical exercise and dietary modification) targeting individuals of higher socioeconomic status to minimize the burden of these non-communicable diseases.

Is Foetal Programming by Mismatched Pre- and Postnatal Nutrition Contributing to the Prevalence of Obesity in Nepal?

Nepal and many developing countries are currently suffering from increased prevalence of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other metabolic disorders. Unhealthy dietary habits and physical inactivity are traditionally considered as responsible factors for these disorders. The relatively new concept of foetal programming suggests that development of metabolic diseases later in life may be associated with poor nutritional status in utero, and such phenomenon could be amplified by subsequent exposure to unhealthy diets after birth. We suggest that foetal programming and mismatched nutritional situations during foetal and postnatal life are important causative factors for increased prevalence of obesity and metabolic disorders in Nepal. Issues highlighted in this paper may also be relevant to other developing countries with similar socioeconomic status. Undernutrition in foetal life can predispose for visceral fat deposition and may alter dietary preferences towards unhealthy diets, amplifying the risk of nutritional mismatch after birth; this can lead to metabolic disturbances in a number of pathways including glucose and lipid metabolism. Providing attention to early life nutrition could therefore be an important tool to reduce the prevalence of lifestyle diseases in Nepal. Future national health policies should thus include changes in research and intervention activities towards preventing averse early life nutritional programming. Availability of free-of-cost and mandatory nutritional education and medical services to pregnant women and their families and better management of national health care systems including digitalization of national health data could be viable strategies to achieve these goals.

Correlates and inequality of underweight and overweight among women of reproductive age: Evidence from the 2016 Nepal Demographic Health Survey

INTRODUCTION

Understanding socio-economic correlates and inequality of underweight and overweight is crucial to develop interventions to prevent adverse health outcomes.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We analysed Nepal Demographic and Health Survey 2016 data from 6,069 women aged 15-49 years. WHO cut-offs for Body Mass Index categorised as: underweight (<18.5 kg/m2), normal weight (18.5kg/m2 to 24.9kg/m2) and overweight/ obesity (> = 25.0 kg/m2) were used. We used multinomial logistic regression to explore associations of factors with Body Mass Index and concentration indices to estimate socio-economic inequalities.

RESULTS

Higher risk of underweight was found in age group 15-19 (RRR 3.08, 95% CI: 2.29-4.15), 20-29 (RRR 1.64, 95% CI: 1.29-2.08) and in lowest (RRR 1.60, 95% CI: 1.03-2.47) and second wealth quintiles (RRR 1.77 (95% CI: 1.18-2.64). Education, occupation, urban/rural residence and food security were not associated with underweight (p>0.05). Lower risk of overweight/obesity was found in age group 15-19 (RRR 0.07, 95% CI: 0.05-0.10), 20-29 (RRR 0.40, 95% CI: 0.32-0.51), in manual occupation (RRR 0.58, 95% CI: 0.46-0.74) and in lower quintiles. Women with primary (RRR 1.91, 95% CI: 1.36-2.67), secondary education (RRR 1.42, 95% CI 1.00, 2.01) were at increased risk of overweight/obesity. Household food security and urban/rural residence were not associated with overweight/obesity (p>0.05). Socioeconomic inequalities were detected, with overweight/obesity strongly concentrated (concentration index: 0.380) amongst the higher quintiles and underweight concentrated (concentration index: -0.052) amongst the poorest.

CONCLUSION

Nutrition programmes should target younger and poor women to address undernutrition and higher wealth group women to address overnutrition. Equity based nutrition interventions improving socio-economic status of poor households may benefit undernourished women. Interventions to encourage physical activity as women age and among wealthier women as well as healthy eating for prevention of under- and over-nutrition are needed.

Relationship of body mass index to sleep duration, and current smoking among medical students in Tabuk City, Saudi Arabia

Background

Being overweight is associated with cardiometabolic risk, and lifestyles including smoking and good sleep hygiene are also implicated. We aimed to assess the dietary habit, time spent on social media, and sleep duration relationship to body mass index (BMI) among medical students in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 147 clinical phase medical students in the Medical College, University of Tabuk (Saudi Arabia) from January 2018 to May 2018. A checklist questionnaire was used to measure variables such as age, sex, smoking, level of exercise, whether taking meals and snacks regularly, eating fast food, fruit and vegetable consumption, sleep duration, time spent on social media, and breakfast skipping. Data were analyzed by IBM-SPSS version 20, using one-way ANOVA and Pearson's production-moment correlation (r). A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results

Participants consisted of 51% males, mean age (Mean ± SD) was 22.90±1.27 years, sleep duration was 7.50±2.17 hours, time spent on social media was 5.54±3.49 hours, body mass index was 24.8±5.19, and breakfast skipping, fast food consumption, smoking, and regular exercise were reported in 52.4%, 87.7%, 12.9%, and 36.1% respectively. A significant negative correlation was evident between BMI and sleep duration (r= -0.185, p=0.025), cigarette smokers were more likely to be obese compared to their counterparts (27.28±6.85 vs. 24.10±4.98, p=0.018). No significant statistical relationship was evident between BMI, breakfast skipping, fast food, fruit and vegetable intake, and time spent on social media.

Conclusion

BMI was higher among smokers and those with shorter sleep duration, there was no association between BMI and other students' characteristics. Measures to smoking quitting and good sleep hygiene are recommended.