Awareness About Lifestyle Diseases Associated Risk Factors in School Going Children in Delhi

Abstract

Lifestyle means a pattern of individual practices and personal behavioral choices that are related to elevated or reduced health risk. The diseases which primarily arise from the abnormal lifestyle of a person are grouped under the term “Lifestyle Diseases”. For younger population, the risk of lifestyle disease looms larger. Therefore, this paper aimed to find the prevalence and awareness of lifestyle disease related risk factors in school going children aged 8–12 years of Delhi. A cross-sectional study was carried out in a government and private school of Delhi. A questionnaire was made to elicit the awareness levels amongst the school children about the risk factors associated with lifestyle. The specific scores were given to responses of various questions, and data was analyzed using WHO software package Epi Info. A total of 293 participants from both the schools aged 8–12 years were included. 10% students were classified as obese whereas 11% were labeled as overweight. Nearly 39% students were underweight. Around 50% of the participants were consuming soft drinks, chocolates and chips at least 3 times per week. Awareness regarding healthy and harmful eating was quite high amongst the school children. 60% said that parents and family were the most influential source of information about their health. The recommended level of physical activity was being practiced by 55% of the students though more than 90% knew that physical activity is good for health. Almost 90% of the school children were also aware about the addictive nature of smoking and alcohol and that they are harmful to health. Though the awareness level is high, it does not reflect in their eating habits. Opinion of the children with respect to physical activity is not in line with their present practice. Thus, it can be concluded that just imparting knowledge and increasing awareness is not sufficient to prevent the onset of lifestyle diseases amongst school children. Keywords: Lifestyle diseases, school children, eating habits, Physical activity