Analytical cross sectional study on association of dietary habits with overweight and obesity among adolescents

Background: India with around 1.2 billion people is the world’s second most populous country and is recently facing rapid epidemiological transition. Under nutrition because of poverty which ruled in the past is being rapidly replaced by overweight and obesity.Methods: The cross-sectional study was done among school going Adolescents. Sample size was 309. Questionnaire of Global School Health Survey (core questionnaire of site specific) was used. The independents variables were dietary habits like eating fruits, vegetables, fast food, dairy products, bakery products, sweets, chocolates and carbonated soft drinks whereas the dependent variables were overweight and obesity.Results: The 53 (17.15%) of the students were having overweight and 22 (07.12%) of them were obese. No association observed between dietary habits like locally available fruits and vegetables with overweight and obesity. Significant association observed between dietary habits like fast food, dairy products, bakery products, sweets, chocolates and carbonated soft drinks with overweight and obesity.Conclusions: Unhealthy dietary habits had noticeable impact on prevalence of overweight and obesity among school going adolescents.