Obese Adolescent: Social and Psychological Portrait

Background. Obesity and its complications continue to be a serious problem in children and adolescents in the 21st century. Clinical and psychological studies show that obesity may lead to changes in emotional status of adolescents. Today exposure to sociodemographic parameters is known to be a risk factor for the development of obesity in children. Thus, our research focuses on the relationship between sociodemographic  and psychological factors and obesity in adolescents, as this link has not been sufficiently studied.

Aim. To determine sociodemographic and psychological factors associated with adolescent obesity.

Materials and methods. Our cross-sectional study included 111 obese adolescents and 39 normal weight adolescents, aged 11–17 years. We used anthropometry and questionnaire methods to examine emotional state, eating habits and socio-demographic characteristics of teenagers.

Results. It is shown that adolescents with obesity are more likely than adolescents with normal weight to  have a stepparent (p = 0.002). All adolescents with normal weight were involved in extracurricular activities  and attended different courses (studying with tutors, going to language schools, exam preparation courses),  compared to adolescents with obesity (75 %) (p < 0.001). We did not find any differences between the groups in the domains of sports activities and screen time. When examining the emotional state of adolescents, we found that more people from the group with obesity suffered from lower self-esteem than from the control group (p = 0.041). Adolescents with obesity tend to have (15.3 %) severe depression, while no controls reported this issue.

Conclusions. We found that adolescents with obesity more often live in a step-family. They are less likely to be engaged in additional educational activities. We succeeded to describe the emotional status and eating habits of obese adolescents.

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