Evaluation of some diet habit and physical activity in adolescents in Tehran (2011)

Background: Unhealthy lifestyle ends to some important health problems in adolescence, and also causes chronic non-communicable disease, hence increasing mortality and morbidity in adults. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the components of lifestyle in adolescence. Methods: In this cross sectional study, 346 male and 197 female of adolescents aged 9 to 16 years were selected randomly from the 5th district of Tehran city in 2011. Data were gathered from the lifestyle questionnaires which were designed and consistent with the findings of studies. Questionnaire has the dimensions of nutrition and energy drink consumption, exercise, and sleep patterns. The data were analyzed by the chi-square and t-test. Findings: 142 (72%) of girls and 260 (77%) of boys consumed daily dairy. Daily and weekly fast food intakes in girls were 8 (4.1%) and 52 (26.4%), while in the boys were 36 (10.4%) and 110(31.8%) respectively. Totally, more than 149 (75%) of girls and 295 (86%) of boys consumed soda. 17 (8.6%) of girls and 59 (17.1%) of teenage boys consumed energetic drink at least once a week. Adolescent girls and boys had a physical activity on average 3.2 and 4.2 days respectively in gymnasium in a week. Conclusion: According to the results, correction of nutritional behaviors is a mandatory task. In addition due to the trends of adolescence toward doing exercise in public places, the policy for the equipping of public place and gyms should be reconsidered in our society.