Fast food consumption and overweight/obesity prevalence in students and its association with general and abdominal obesity
Summary Nowadays, the prevalence of both fast food consumption and overweight/obesity has been increased. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of fast food consumption and to assess its association with abdominal and general obesity. In an analytical cross sectional study, 300 students were selected randomly from two largest universities in Qom, center of Iran, studying in medical and basic sciences fields in 2015. Data collection was conducted by a modified version of NELSON's fast food questionnaire and anthropometric measures including Waist Hip Ratio (WHR) and Body Mass Index (BMI) Chi square, independent t test, and multivariate logistic regression were used for statistical analysis. According to our results, 72.4% (67.4% in females vs 80.7% in males) had at least one type of fast food consumption in the recent month including sandwich 44.4% pizza 39.7% and fried chicken 13.8% The obesity prevalence based on BMI and WHR was 21.3% (95% CI: 19.4, 23.2% and 33.2% (95% CI: 0.7, 35.7) respectively. Fast food consumption was related to abdominal obesity as WHR (OR: 1.46, 95% CI: 1.11, 2.26) but was not related to general obesity as BMI (OR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.63, 1.52) The prevalence of fast food consumption and obesity/overweight in Iranian student is high. Fast food consumption was associated with abdominal obesity based WHR, but did not related to general obesity based on BMI.
Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene