Can Food Addiction Predict Weight Trend among Middle School Student?

Background: Obesity's rapid growth has various negative implications, including decreasing possibilities to participate in educational and recreational activities, as well as rising economic burden on families and society Rapidly growing childhood and adolescent obesity rates, as well as the consequent increased burden of illness and disability, have major social and economic repercussions, contributing to rising health-care expenditures and impeding economic growth.
Objective(s): The aim of this study is to detect if food addiction predict weight trend among middle school students.
MethodologyThe descriptive correlational design has been considered a subtype of correlational research, with its primary purpose being to examine relationships between and among variables and it is referred to occasionally as simple correlational design.The study included a convenience sample of male and females middle school students who agreed to participate in this study. The study subjects were recruited from eight public middle schools. The sample size was determined using G*Power software based on an effect size of 0.25, alpha error probability of 0.05, a power of 0.95, five groups. Thus, the recommended sample size would be 304. Considering an attrition rate of 20%, additional 61 subjects would be required. As such, the recommended sample size would be 365. The final sample size is 380.
Results: There is a statistically significant difference in food addiction between gender groups (p-value = 0.001). There is no statistically significant difference in food addiction among grade groups, socioeconomic class groups, and body mass index groups.
Conclusion: Most of students were within normal weigh-to-height. More than a fifth are either overweight or have obesity class I and class II. The greater the food addiction, the greater the body mass index. The third graders have greater body mass index.
Recommendations: There is a need for the community health nurses to establish collaboration with directorates of education to raise both school administrators and students about the value of healthy weight and deleterious consequences of overweight and obesity.