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Associations between intakes of foods and their relations to overweight/obesity in 16-year-old adolescents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2022

Maria Norburg Tell*
Affiliation:
Futurum, Region Jönköping County, Jönköping, SwedenDepartment of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
Katarina Hedin
Affiliation:
Futurum, Region Jönköping County, Jönköping, SwedenDepartment of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, SwedenDepartment of Clinical Sciences in Malmö, Family Medicine, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden
Mats Nilsson
Affiliation:
Futurum, Region Jönköping County, Jönköping, SwedenDepartment of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
Marie Golsäter
Affiliation:
Futurum, Region Jönköping County, Jönköping, SwedenDepartment of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, SwedenChild Research Group, Department of Nursing, School of Health and Welfare, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden
Hans Lingfors
Affiliation:
Futurum, Region Jönköping County, Jönköping, SwedenDepartment of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
*
*Corresponding author: Maria Norburg Tell, email maria.norburg.tell@rjl.se

Abstract

There is limited knowledge about the associations between intakes of different foods and inconsistency in the literature of the relation between the quality of food intake and bodyweight in adolescents. The aim of this study is to explore how healthy self-reported food intakes are associated with each other and with overweight/obesity in adolescents. This is a cross-sectional study of seven cohorts of adolescents (n 13 451) who turned sixteen from 2009/2010 up to 2015/2016 and responded to a health questionnaire used by the School Health Services in southeast Sweden. Associations between intakes of ten self-reported foods as well as between food intakes and weight groups based on the International Obesity Task Force standards (isoBMI) were explored by multivariable logistic regression. Healthy intakes of different foods were mostly associated with each other with the strongest association between a high intake of fruit and a high intake of vegetables (odds ratio (OR) = 25 (95 % confidence interval (CI) 20⋅0–33⋅1)). A low-frequency intake of sweets/snacks (OR = 2⋅35 (95 % CI 1⋅84–3⋅00)) was associated with overweight/obesity as well as a healthy choice of butter/margarine (≤40 % fat) (OR = 1⋅82 (95 % CI 1⋅39 to 2⋅41)), but a high-frequency intake of vegetables was negatively associated with overweight/obesity 0⋅77 (0⋅62–0⋅95). To promote health and achieve a healthy weight among adolescents, it is important to take both diet quality and total food amount into consideration.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Nutrition Society
Figure 0

Table 1.Reported intake of different foods in 16-year-old adolescents according to the ‘My Health’ questionnaire

Figure 1

Table 2.IsoBMI categories in 16-year-old adolescents 2009/2010–2015/2016 in Jönköping County

Figure 2

Table 3.Associations between reported intake of foods in 16-year-old adolescents (n 13 451) in Jönköping County from 2009/2010 up to 2015/2016 explored by multivariable logistic regression

Figure 3

Table 4.Associations between healthy intakes of foods and overweight/obesity in 16-year-old adolescents (n 13 451a) in Jönköping County from 2009/2010 up to 2015/2016 explored by multivariable logistic regression