Impact of dietary habits on the nutritional status of adolescents in Serbia: Results of the health behaviour in school-aged children study 2018

Abstract

Adolescence represents a high-risk period for weight gain, due to hormonal and metabolic changes that lead to changes in body composition, but also to changes in diet and exercise-related behaviours. Dietary habits of adolescents have a significant impact on their nutritional and health status; establishment of adequate habits is important, due to their impact on growth and development at this stage in life, but also on health consequences in adulthood. The purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics of diet and diet-related behaviours in adolescents aged 11, 13 and 15 in Serbia and to examine their relationship with nutritional status categories. In this paper, data from the Health Behaviour in School-age Children Study in Serbia from 2018 were used. The study was conducted as a cross-sectional study of a national representative sample of adolescents aged 11, 13 and 15. In this study, according to the BMI, 12% of the respondents were underweight, 70.8% were of normal weight, while 17.2% were overweight and obese. When it comes to dietary habits, 59.3% of the respondents regularly eat breakfast during the working week. Fruits are consumed once per day or more often by 42%, and vegetables by 41.5% of the respondents. Sweets are consumed once per day and more often by 35.7% of adolescents, while a fifth of the adolescents drink juices every day, older children more often than the younger. A fifth of the adolescents have snacks every day while watching TV and working/playing on a computer, and the same number have at least one meal per day while watching television, as well. Findings of this study indicate a need for a more intensive health education for adolescents, not just for the purpose of preventing obesity, but also to prevent unwanted diet-related behaviours such as snacking or "grazing", skipping meals etc, since dietary habits adopted in childhood and adolescence persist in adulthood.