Assessing social differences in overweight among 15- to 16-year-old ethnic Norwegians from Oslo by register data and adolescent self-reported measures of socio-economic status

• Published in: International Journal of Obesity Vol. 31; no. 1; pp. 30 - 38
• Main Authors: Lien, N, Kumar, B.N, Holmboe-Ottesen, G, Klepp, K.I, Wandel, M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.01.2007; Nature Publishing; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: accuracy; Adolescent; Adolescents; Adults; Biological and medical sciences; Body Height; Body Mass Index; Body Weight; boys; Child development; Children & youth; Cross-Sectional Studies; data collection; disease incidence; Economics; Education; educational plans; Educational Status; Epidemiology; Exercise; Feeding. Feeding behavior; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; gender differences; girls; Health care; Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; household income; Humans; Income; Internal Medicine; Longitudinal studies; Male; Medical sciences; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Metabolic Diseases; Norway; Norway - epidemiology; Nutrition; Obesity; Obesity - epidemiology; Occupations; Overweight; Parents; Parents & parenting; pediatric-highlight; Prevalence; Preventive medicine; Public Health; Residential areas; Self report; self-reported data; Sex Distribution; Social mobility; Socioeconomic Factors; socioeconomic status; Socioeconomics; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teenagers; Upward mobility; Vertebrates: anatomy and physiology, studies on body, several organs or systems; Weight control; Norway; Europe; Norway, Oslo; adolescents; overweight; socio-economic status; BMI; Human; Obesity; Socioeconomic status; Nutrition; Self evaluation; Anthropometry; Body weight; Nutrition disorder; Metabolic diseases; Corporal biometry; Ethnic group; Overweight; Body mass index; Register; Adolescent; Social aspect; Nutritional status; Comparative study; Public health
• ISSN: 0307-0565; 1476-5497
• DOI: 10.1038/sj.ijo.0803415

Objective: To determine to what extent self-reported and objective data on socio-economic status (SES) are associated with overweight/obesity among 15 to 16-year-old ethnic Norwegians. Design: A cross-sectional questionnaire study on health and health-related behaviors. Subjects: All school children aged 15-16 years old in 2000 and 2001 in Oslo, Norway. Response rate 88% (n=7343). This article is based on the data from the 5498 ethnic Norwegians. Measurements: Self-reported height and weight were used to measure overweight (including obesity) as defined by the International Obesity Task Force cutoffs at the nearest half-year intervals. SES was determined by register data from Statistics Norway on residential area, parental education and income and by adolescent self-reported measures on parental occupation and adolescents' educational plans. Results: The prevalence of overweight/obesity was low, but higher among boys (11%) than among girls (6%). Parental education (four levels) showed the clearest inverse gradients with overweight/obesity (boys: 18, 13, 10 and 7%; girls: 11, 6, 6 and 4%). Parental education remained significantly associated with overweight/obesity when adding occupation and income to the model for the boys, whereas there were no significant associations in the final model for the girls. Overweight/obesity was associated with a lower odds ratio of planning for higher education (college/university) among boys only. Conclusion: For the boys, parental education was most strongly associated with overweight/obesity, and the association between overweight/obesity and educational plans appears to imply downward social mobility. The relationships between the various SES measures and overweight/obesity appeared more interrelated for the girls.