Effect of Life Style on Weight in a Sample of Early Adulthood from Falluja Secondary Schools

Abstract

Background: Weight and its problems have become of great interest nowadays and many researches are aiming to study how weight would affect a person's life. Many researches reached to a conclusion that life style has a an important role to play on weight and it is known that at early adulthood, the impact of weight will determine whether this person will have a healthy or unhealthy, troublesome life. Aim of Study: The purpose of this study was to assess how life style and daily habits would affect young adults weight .Methodology : A cross-sectional study was carried out from March to May 2013 in the City of Falluja , involving secondary school students 15-18 years of age . A simple random sampling was used to select 4 secondary schools out of 11 secondary schools in falluja city center . a systematic random sampling was used to draw a sample of 396 out of 2650 secondary students enrolled in 4 secondary schools . A questionnaire was applied containing several questions about lifestyle variables, for each individual , height and weight were measured and BMI was calculated .A total of 396 students 15-18 years age 185(46.71%) males and 211(53.28%) females were examined .The variables in questionnaire form and methods used by the investigator were explained briefly to all students in the sample. The data were evaluated using chi-square test . Differences where considered statistically significant at p < 0.05 . Results: About 7.07% of the students were overweight ,89.39% were normal weight , 3.53% were under weight, the study showed that there was a statistically significant association of weight with between gender(p value 0.001), number of meals(p value 0.000),breakfast(p value 0.005), Sweet cold drinks(p value 0.004), physical activity(p value 0.04), sleeping hours(p value 0.001) and, but no significant association between smoking(p value 0.08) , type of feeding during infancy(p value 0.79) and weight.Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that the weight problems are not major problem within adolescents in Falluja students in secondary schools , however , abnormal BMI is found to be related to certain variables of lifestyles which were studied , including : number. of meals having a breakfast, cold drinks , sleeping hours, physical activity . Health professionals , teachers , and family environment may play a key role in the promotion of a healthy lifestyle.