Relationships between screen time, internet addiction and other lifestyle behaviors with obesity among secondary school students in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Özet

Obesity among children and adolescents is one of the critical public healthproblems worldwide, and the prevalence of obesity has been increasing rapidlyover decades. We examined the associations between screen time, internetaddiction and other life style behaviors with obesity among high schoolstudents in Near East College in Northern Cyprus. A cross-sectional studywas conducted among 469 secondary school students with mean age 11.95±0.81 years. A self-administrated questionnaire was applied to assess screentime and life style behaviors. The Turkish adapted version of the short-form ofinternet addiction test was used to assess internet addiction problems. Heightand weight were measured objectively to calculate body mass Index (BMI) andclassify based on the BMI percentiles for sex and age. Descriptive analysis,Chi-Square test and multivariate regression analysis were performed, and thep- value <0.05 was accepted as significant.Of all participants, 17.2% were overweight and obese, and 18.1% had internetaddiction, while 40.7% of them reported to have screen time of more thantwo hours a day. After adjusting the analysis for age and sex, eating snackswhile watching TV (OR,3.04; 95% CI, 1.28-7.21), self- perceived body weight(OR, 24.9; 95% CI, 9.64-64.25) and having a play station in the room (OR,4.6;95% CI, 1.85 - 11.42) were significantly associated with obesity. Screen time(OR,4.68; 95% CI, 2.61-8.38; p=0.000) and having a computer in the bedroom(OR,1.7;95% CI, 1.01- 2.87; p=0.046) were significantly associated withinternet addiction, whereas parent’s complaint about lengthy technology use(OR,0.23; 95% CI, 0.11-0.46; p=0.000) was found to be a protective factoragainst internet addiction. The findings highlighted the significance of a family- school based integrated approach, which should be implemented to tackleobesity problem to improve the quality of life of children and adolescents.