2023-06-29 17:01:36
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More than one in five (21.7 percent) Flemish young people are overweight or obese. This is evident from the four-yearly study Youth and Health of the Department of Care on Thursday. In the previous survey, in 2018, that was just over one in seven.
The research is part of the international Health Behavior in School-aged Children study (HSBC) and was carried out by researchers from Ghent University with 20,000 Flemish young people between 11 and 18 years old.
The proportion of overweight and obese young people increased sharply, from 13.8 percent in 2018 to 21.7 percent in 2022. Significantly more girls (47.5 percent) than boys (26.7 percent) followed a diet or thought they were too and girls are generally less satisfied with their bodies (60.9 percent) than boys (86.4 percent).
“The increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity among young people is in line with the increase observed in the corona health surveys among adults,” says Loes Stukken of the Eetexpert knowledge centre. “Young people do not live separately from their family, so a negative impact of corona on the living behavior within their family also affects them.” With regard to dietary habits, there are both positive and negative evolutions, says the Health Department in a press release.
For example, young people drink more water – from 86.4 in 2018 to 87.6 percent in 2022 – and less soft drinks – from 24.1 to 22.6 percent. The proportion that ate vegetables daily, on the other hand, fell sharply from 61.9 to 54.5 percent. A lot fewer young people – from 68.6 to 58.6 percent – eat breakfast every day during the week. Fruit consumption remained stable – from 37.5 to 36.5 percent.
“In recent years, schools have focused strongly on a healthy drinks policy, with a greater supply of water and fewer soft drinks,” says Jolien Plaete, nutrition expert at the Vlaams Instituut Gezond Leven vzw. “We may see the result of this in this study. We must focus even more on creating and promoting a healthy range in environments where young people are often present, for example in and around the school. In the study we also clearly see that young people from general secondary education have healthier eating habits than young people from out-of-school care.”
The study also shows a mixed picture in the field of movement. Slightly more young people get enough exercise every day – from 17.5 percent in 2018 to 20.1 percent in 2022. But fewer young people – from 7.8 to 5.0 percent – meet the recommendation on sedentary behaviour: they sit more than 2 times a day. hours behind a screen. There is also a big difference between boys and girls: more boys (25.5 percent) than girls (14.0 percent) get enough exercise every day.
Finally, it also appears that young people sleep worse. The proportion of 11 to 12 year olds who did not get the recommended 9 hours of sleep every night during school days increased from 44.8 to 51.4 percent. Among the 13 to 18-year-olds, the number who did not get 8 hours of sleep rose from 57.7 to 67.3 percent. Sleep quality also deteriorated: in 2018 it was poor at 40.3 percent, in 2022 at 48.4 percent.
Previously published results of the study Youth and Health on physical, mental and social well-being and sexual health. More results will follow on substance use, gambling and gaming.
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