[Knowledge and gaps on the role of nutrition and physical activity on the onset of childhood obesity]

Perception of students on factors contributing to overweight and obesity among high school students in Kiribati: A qualitative study

BACKGROUND

Overweight and obesity among high school students is a growing distress not only to the individual wellbeing of a person but also to the productivity of communities and economic expense of both developed and developing nations. This study aimed to determine factors contributing to overweight and obesity among high school students in Kiribati through the perception of students.

METHODS

This qualitative study was conducted in four (4) randomly selected senior high schools on South Tarawa, Kiribati from August to November, 2020. A purposive sampling was used to select thirty-two (32) students enrolled into form levels 4-7. A semi-structured open-ended questionnaire was used for data collection using face-to-face in-depth interviews. Data was transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis method.

RESULTS

This research revealed that the participants were 21 (65.6%) were females and 11 (34.4%) males from form levels four with 9 (28.1%) participants, five with 9 (28.1%) participants, and form seven with 14 (43.8%) participants. Five themes identified including determinants and prevention of overweight and obesity, education and health system factors, stigma, and being fat comes with high risk. These themes collectively elaborate on the essentials of overweight and obesity that are obtained from perspectives of students.

CONCLUSION

A strong cultural belief and practice has caused misperception of overweight and obesity among students with knowledge-behavior gap recognized as the main reason behind the failure in lifestyle changes among adolescents. Strengthen healthy behavioral lifestyle, improve awareness, and support feasible preventative strategies is recommended to all students.

Exercise in the treatment of childhood obesity

Changing lifestyles reduce the time spent by children on physical activity during the day. The result is an increasing frequency of childhood obesity, which has become one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood. Furthermore, the treatment of obesity in childhood is quite difficult, and the most common problem is non-compliance with obesity treatment. The path that will facilitate the adaptation to treatment comprises nutrition regulation and increased daily physical activity and psychological support. Diet alone leads to a significant reduction in both fat and non-fat body mass. However, adding exercise to dietary therapy improves weight loss by maintaining non-fat body mass. Even though exercise alone has little effect on weight loss, it provides a significant reduction in mortality. Moreover, regular physical exercise is also an important factor in regulating body composition during growth. However, changes in the child’s body during growth affect the motor power and performance, so it is necessary to plan the exercise according to the individual characteristics, age and sex of the child. Short-term frequent exercises are more entertaining and more accessible forms of exercise (dancing at home) for children, and enhance compliance with treatment. Starting treatment as soon as possible will also increase behavioral effectiveness and compliance. This paper focuses on the basics of exercise therapy, which is extremely beneficial for both healthy and obese children.

Childhood obesity: immune response and nutritional approaches

Childhood obesity is characterized by a low-grade inflammation status depending on the multicellular release of cytokines, adipokines, and reactive oxygen species. In particular, the imbalance between anti-inflammatory T regulatory cells and inflammatory T helper 17 cells seems to sustain such a phlogistic condition. Alterations of gut microbiota since childhood also contribute to the maintenance of inflammation. Therefore, besides preventive measures and caloric restrictions, dietary intake of natural products endowed with anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activities may represent a valid interventional approach for preventing and/or attenuating the pathological consequences of obesity. In this regard, the use of prebiotics, probiotics, polyphenols, polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, and melatonin in human clinical trials will be described.