Abstract

Background: Nutritional intake has great impact during the adolescent period due to their physical and mental growth and development.

Objective: This study was designed to see the association of dietary practice with body mass index (BMI) among adolescent and their health risk habits.

Materials and Methods: A total of 212 adolescents from three government schools of Butwal sub-metropolitan city were randomly selected to participate in this cross-sectional study. A semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire was provided to collect information. Height and weight were measured. SPSS software version 21 was used for data analysis; Chi-square test was applied to see association and P ≤ 0.05 was taken as statistically significant.

Results: The mean age of the respondent was 17 ± 1.19 years. Nearly 60% of them were female. Their BMI was ranging from 12.84 to 40.58 kg/m2 with average 20.77 ± 3.52 kg/m2. About 33% of the adolescents were malnourished, among them, 23.6% were underweight. Nearly one-fourth of the respondent had consumed alcohol which was 7% in case of drugs. Among the girls, non-smokers were 90.6% while it was 70.6% for boys. Health risk habits were significantly common among boys.

Conclusion: Proportion of overweight among adolescent is increasing while underweight is still a significant problem. Health risk habits are also being common which is an alarming situation in public health.

Key words: Adolescent; Body Mass Index; Nutrition; Practice