Meal Pattern and Obesity Sector for Biostatistics & Repository Data, NIH, MOH among Adolescents in urban area

Introduction: The prevalence of obesity may have reached a plateau in some developed countries and become more complex and intractable in many developing countries. Poor diet patterns are found to be prospectively associated with an increased risk of adolescent obesity. The aim of this study is to determine the association of having frequent meals towards obesity among Malaysian school-going adolescents in urban areas. Methodology: This study used the data from National Health Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2017, a nationwide cross-sectional survey that implemented a two-stage stratified random sampling design. A total of 23,463 adolescents age between 10 to 17 years old from the urban area were involved. Complex samples logistic regression analyses were then performed to estimate the odds of being obese according to the meal type using the SPSS software version 25. Meal patterns are used to describe individuals' eating patterns at a different level of a meal including breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a smaller-sized meal like supper or snack in a week. Results: The finding shows that 6.6% of adolescents were categorized as thin, 62.3% normal, 16.2% overweight and 15% obese in the urban area. Total number of obese adolescents were 3,496 (male = 60.2%, female = 9.8%). The finding shows very strong evidence of relationship between meal pattern and obesity with breakfast (p<0.001), lunch (p<0.016), dinner (p<0.001), and supper (p<0.001). Discussion/conclusion: This study showed that the prevalence of obesity among Malaysian urban adolescents was quite high with estimating of  1 in every 7 adolescents found to become obese. Obesity was found to be higher among males and Bumiputera Sarawak. The study has limitations since it concentrated on the relationship between obesity and food intake effects without taking into account other possible causes. Awareness programmes and activities on obesity and healthy meal pattern need to be improved especially among primary and secondary students. [Disclaimer: Abstract text might vary slightly from what is displayed in the e-poster]