Effect of Junk Food on Obesity Status of School Children

Children require proper dietary habit without which they will face severe health consequences like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and even cancer. Junk food became the favourite food among school children. Junk food contains trans-fat, sugar and high calorie with less nutrients. It has been noticed that children do not clearly understand the health consequences of junk food consumption and they prefer it more due to variety of reasons including convenience, taste, availability, price, even-though it causes obesity and other health problems (Fleck,2014). Regular intake of junk food cause children to become addictive which further leads to complications like overweight and obesity. Excess consumption of junk food leads to obesity which likely to increase the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and other heart diseases. During the digestion process after the consumption of junk food the pancreas has to work continuously to secrete large amount of insulin to prevent blood sugar spikes. Restricting the consumption of junk food is one way to keep cholesterol low, prevent obesity and other cardiac diseases (A, 2014).The school going students are becoming more addictive to junk foods and studies shows that they are less aware of the health risks due to the consumption of junk food. Even the teachers are less bothered about the health status of their students. The present study was aimed to find out the impact of junk food habits on obesity status of school going children.

General dietary habits were collected using pre tested Junk food questionnaire. On the basis of questionnaire, students were categorized as Junk Food Habitual (H) and Junk Food Not Habitual (NH). Anthropometric Measurements Anthropometry is one of the most basic tools for assessing nutritional status, whether over-nutrition or under nutrition. There are several methods available to measure body fatness and body thinness. Amongst all measurements height and weight based measurements are the most commonly and practical tools used in community surveys, for assessing nutritional status. Height was measured without buttocks and back touching the vertical limb of the wall. Portable weighing machine was used to measure weight of children without shoes and wearing minimum necessary clothes. It was recorded to the nearest 0.5 kg (R.Kashyap, 2014).

BMI

The value of Body mass index (BMI) was calculated. Body mass index was determined using the body weight (kg) and height (M) measurements using the following formula.

Table-I : BMI Reference chart

TABLE-II The data in the table summarizes the descriptive statistic (mean, standard deviation, and standard error) for the junk food habitual and junk food non habitual variables. The mean value of junk food habitual is 29.7250 whereas junk food non habitual is 19.7600. The standard deviation are 1.79323 and 2.13132 respectively.

Table 3 provides the answer for the research question. The significant level of .000 proves that there is a significant difference between the junk food habitual and junk food non habitual students. habitual to junk food. The parents and teachers are least bothered about the growing junk food habit of their children. Consumption of junk food causes serious health issues and most of the children are unaware of it. The result of this study proves that the junk food habitual children are more prone to obesity than those who are non-habitual. Previous study by Shubha Devi on junk food consumption among secondary levels students of chitwan suggests that junk foods are consumed on a regular basis by school children because of the taste and influenced advertisements. More than half of the students are unaware of the health risks and most students fall under obese category and have serious health issues (Devi, 2017).The study done by Bhaskar Rajeev on the health problems related to the consumption of junk food shows that junk food might cause serious health problems like heart disease, high cholesterol, lack of concentration, diabetes, dental problems, kidney diseases, cancer and obesity especially among the school children who are more habitual to junk food (Rajeev, 2012).

This study concludes that the regular consumption of junk food causes obesity and other health problems among school children which can cause further problems in later age. Several studies carried out by researchers on school children of various places shows the same result. The study recommends that awareness classes should be conducted in each institution giving knowledge to all the teachers, parents and students regarding the harmful health problems due to the consumption of junk food and also about the healthy dietary practices.

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Student of Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education, Gwalior