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Abstract

Background: Obesity has become a developing social health issue among teenagers in Iraq especially in secondary school students.
Objective: The purpose of the study was to determine the level of overweight and obesity and to investigate the correlation between the knowledge of students about nutrition and their body mass index (BMI). Our hypothesis was that the lesser the nutritional knowledge, the more likely it was to be overweight or obese.
Methods: This study utilized a cross-sectional analytical survey study on 596 secondary school students with the ages of 1518 years in Baghdad, Iraq (response rate: 93.7%). A valid and reliable structured questionnaire and standardized anthropometric measurements were used to collect data. Statistical tests incorporated chi-square tests, independent t-tests, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and binary logistic regression to give odds ratios (OR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI).
Results: The findings indicated that 36.7 percent of the respondents were obese or overweight. Low nutritional knowledge had a great impact on students who tended to be in higher categories of BMI (p < 0.001). The logistic regression analysis revealed that low knowledge amongst adolescents significantly increased the risk of being overweight or obese by almost twice the chance of high knowledge (OR = 1.92, 95% CI: 1.332.78).
Conclusion: The results indicate that there is a dire need to have evidence-based interventions targeting school-based programs that integrate nutrition education with behavioral modification programs as a means of encouraging a healthy lifestyle among Iraqi adolescents.

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