Association of body perception and dietary weight management behaviours among children and adolescents aged 6–17 years in China: cross-sectional study using CHNS (2015)

Abstract

Background Obesity is rapidly globally increasing. Meanwhile, there is an increase in negative perception of the body image and, consequently, an increase in weight control management. Body perception plays an important mediating role between overweight or obesity and weight control behaviours. This study aims to examine whether body perception is associated with dietary weight management behaviours among Chinese children and adolescents. Methods Child body perception and health behaviours from Chinese Health and Nutrition Survey (2015) were assessed, and 729 boys and 640 girls who aged 6 to 17 years were included in this study. Variables assessed as covariates were sociodemographic, physical activity and body perception involving self-perceptive weight status and body image dissatisfaction (BID). Multivariate logistic regression was used to explore the association between dietary weight management behaviours and body perception. Results 60.77% students rightly matched their body mass index (BMI) with self-perceived weight. The prevalence of BID was 59.39%. After adjustment for sociodemographic information, physical activities and BMI, those whose self-perceived weight status as overweight/obesity were associated with an increased risk of dietary weight management behaviours comparing to those who have normal weight in boys (OR = 5.07; 95% CI = 1.86, 13.87; P < 0.001) and girls (OR = 14.28; 95%CI = 5.73, 35.56; P < 0.001). And those who desire to be thinner were strongly associated with dietary weight management behaviours (OR = 9.51; 95%CI = 3.47, 26.09; P < 0.001) comparing to those who were satisfied with their body image in girls. Conclusions The results revealed that body perception had a significant association with dietary weight management behaviours and exited the discrepancy according to sex. It is necessary to promote healthy awareness of body perception and to establish self-motivation for improving basic health knowledge in school health education activities.

Physical Activity and Body Image Perception in Adolescents: A Systematic Review

“…Most samples included both genders, 5 studies (17.8%) included only females, and one (3.6%) only males. All the studies were conducted on samples of students except two studies on athletes, two studies on Chinese samples [ 46 , 69 ], that employed a secondary-analyses of data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), and the Indonesian household survey [ 59 ]. The majority of studies had a cross-sectional design, and only three studies had a longitudinal or repeated measures design [ 38 , 42 , 63 ].…”

“…Ten studies [ 31 , 33 , 36 , 38 , 46 , 63 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 69 ], despite evaluating both body dissatisfaction and PA or sports levels, did not assess the association between these variables.…”

“…However, a decline in PA practice during the period of adolescence is well known [ 72 , 73 ], leading especially girls to be less active than boys and not following the WHO recommendations of at least 60 min of MVPA per day [ 74 ], as confirmed by this review with a percentage of inactivity reaching almost three times as high in females as in males in Spain [ 50 ] and exceeding 80% inactivity in Brazilian girls [ 47 ] with less than 10% of girls participating in the recommended 60 min/day of MVPA for seven days in the USA [ 45 ]. Inactivity in China was high (about 60%) but similar in the two sexes [ 69 ], while in Indonesia, girls met the daily PA recommendations slightly less than boys [ 59 ]. The only exception is the high MVPA averages (over 5 h per day, value not disaggregated by sex) reported for Ghanaian adolescents [ 44 ].…”

Body Weight, Weight Self-Perception, Weight Teasing and Their Association with Health Behaviors among Chinese Adolescents—The Shanghai Youth Health Behavior Survey

“…For example, one study showed that adolescents with underweight misperceptions may lack control on their diets (such as having more soft drinks and cookies instead of fruits and vegetables) [ 4 ]. In another study, students who thought they were heavy were more restrictive with their diet [ 45 ]. Different from the findings on dietary behaviors, sedentary behavior was positively associated with the perception of being “too heavy” in our study.…”

Self-Perception of Body Weight in Schoolchildren in Northeastern Mexico

“…Previous studies conducted in other countries have concluded that children tend to represent themselves as figures that are thinner than they actually are, showing dissatisfaction with their real bodies [ 15 , 16 ]. In turn, other authors [ 17 , 18 ] have demonstrated that girls are more likely to perceive themselves as overweight when compared to boys, regardless of their BMIs.…”