Attempts to lose weight among overweight and non-overweight adolescents: a cross-national survey
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BioMed Central
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Attempts to lose weight among overweight and non-overweight adolescents: a cross-national survey Kristiina Ojala*1, Carine Vereecken†2, Raili Välimaa†1, Candace Currie†3, Jari Villberg†1, Jorma Tynjälä†1 and Lasse Kannas†1 Address: 1University of Jyväskylä, Department of Health Sciences, Research Center for Health Promotion, P.O. Box 35 (L), FIN-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland, 2Department of Public Health, Ghent University, University Hospital, Bloc A, 2nd Floor, De Pintelaan 185, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium and 3Child and Adolescent Health Research Unit (CAHRU), Department of P E, Sport and Leisure Studies, University of Edinburgh, St. Leonard's Land, Holyrood Road, Edinburgh EH8 8 AQ, UK Email: Kristiina Ojala* - [email protected]; Carine Vereecken - [email protected]; Raili Välimaa - [email protected]; Candace Currie - [email protected]; Jari Villberg - [email protected]; Jorma Tynjälä - [email protected]; Lasse Kannas - [email protected] * Corresponding author †Equal contributors
Published: 14 October 2007 International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 2007, 4:50 5868-4-50
doi:10.1186/1479-
Received: 13 April 2007 Accepted: 14 October 2007
This article is available from: http://www.ijbnpa.org/content/4/1/50 © 2007 Ojala et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Background: Despite the global obesity epidemic, few studies have performed cross-national comparisons of adolescents' attempts to lose weight and weight control practices. This study aims to investigate matters mentioned above by weight status in Europe, Israel, and North America. Methods: Nationally representative samples of adolescents from over 30 countries completed an anonymous, standardized questionnaire as part of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children 2001/2002 survey. The prevalence and likelihood of attempts to lose weight were determined. The effect of weight status, self-perception of overweight, age and country of residence upon the likelihood of current attempts to lose weight were evaluated using multilevel multivariate logistic regression in separate analyses for boys and girls. The study also presented the prevalence of weight control practices of overweight and non-overweight adolescents who had controlled their weight in seven countries. Results: In general, overweight and obese adolescents were more likely to be engaged in current attempts to lose weight and had tried to control their weight during the past 12 months more often than non-overweight adolescents. Besides weight status, self-perception of overweight and age were significant individual-level factors determining current attempts to lose weight. Country of residence was a
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