Elsevier

Public Health

Volume 145, April 2017, Pages 146-148
Public Health

Short Communication
Sex-specific associations with youth obesity in Queensland, Australia

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2016.12.029Get rights and content

Highlights

  • In Queensland, Australia, 1 in 10 youth aged 5–17 years are obese.

  • Obesity in adolescent girls but not boys is strongly associated with parents' education and marital status.

  • Obesity in boys is more strongly associated with take-away food consumption than in girls.

Section snippets

Survey findings

Response rates among parents were 85% (1200/1415) in 2009 and 86% (2484/2888) in 2011. On pooling, there were 3517 children with valid BMI information, of whom 1831 (52%) were boys. Overall, most (67%) of Queensland children were of healthy weight, 18% were overweight, 9% obese and 7% were underweight. The prevalence of obesity among boys was 12% in those aged 5–11 and 7% among those aged 12–17. Among girls, 11% of those aged 5–11 and 4% aged 12–17 were obese. Obese children were significantly

Sex-specific associations

Among boys aged 5–11 years, parental education to high school compared with university level doubled the odds of obesity (OR 2.2, 95%: CI 1.3–3.7), and non-participation in organised sport was also associated (P = 0.007; Table 1). Take-away food consumption was associated with obesity in all boys (P < 0.05). Parents' marital status was not associated.

Among girls, a strong association between low parental education and obesity was seen (OR 5.6, 95% CI: 1.6–19.9) in those aged 12–17 years, in

Ethical approval

Ethics approval was obtained from the institutional Human Research Ethics Committee.

Funding

National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

The sponsor had no involvement in study design, data collection or write up.

Competing interests

None declared.

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