Physical activity, sedentary behaviors and dietary habits among Saudi adolescents relative to age, gender and region

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Few lifestyle factors have been simultaneously studied and reported for Saudi adolescents. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to report on the prevalence of physical activity, sedentary behaviors and dietary habits among Saudi adolescents and to examine the interrelationships among these factors using representative samples drawn from three major cities in Saudi Arabia.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This school-based cross-sectional study was conducted during the years 2009-2010 in three cities: Al-Khobar, Jeddah and Riyadh. The participants were 2908 secondary-school males (1401) and females (1507) aged 14-19 years, randomly selected using a multistage stratified sampling technique. Measurements included weight, height, sedentary behaviors (TV viewing, playing video games and computer use), physical activity using a validated questionnaire and dietary habits.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A very high proportion (84% for males and 91.2% for females) of Saudi adolescents spent more than 2 hours on screen time daily and almost half of the males and three-quarters of the females did not meet daily physical activity guidelines. The majority of adolescents did not have a daily intake of breakfast, fruit, vegetables and milk. Females were significantly (<it>p </it>< 0.05) more sedentary, much less physically active, especially with vigorous physical activity, and there were fewer days per week when they consumed breakfast, fruit, milk and diary products, sugar-sweetened drinks, fast foods and energy drinks than did males. However, the females' intake of French fries and potato chips, cakes and donuts, and candy and chocolate was significantly (<it>p </it>< 0.05) higher than the males'. Screen time was significantly (<it>p </it>< 0.05) correlated inversely with the intake of breakfast, vegetables and fruit. Physical activity had a significant (<it>p </it>< 0.05) positive relationship with fruit and vegetable intake but not with sedentary behaviors.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The high prevalence of sedentary behaviors, physical inactivity and unhealthy dietary habits among Saudi adolescents is a major public health concern. There is an urgent need for national policy promoting active living and healthy eating and reducing sedentary behaviors among children and adolescents in Saudi Arabia.</p

Joint Associations of Activity Energy Expenditure and Sedentary Behaviors with Adolescent's Obesity and Dietary Habits

PURPOSE: Physical inactivity and sedentary behaviors are thought to be independent entities and differently associate with adverse health outcomes. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the joint associations of physical activity and sedentary behaviors with obesity indices and dietary habits among adolescents from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. METHODS: Data were from the Arab Teens Lifestyle Study (ATLS), a school based, cross-sectional lifestyle study. The present analysis included 6279 adolescents (49.4% males) aged 14-20 years, randomly selected from eight major cities in the GCC countries, using a multistage stratified cluster sampling technique. Anthropometric and self-reported lifestyle data were obtained from participants. Adolescents were classified into four categories: high active & low sedentary (HA-LS), high active & high sedentary (HA- HS), low active & low sedentary (LA-LS) and low active & high sedentary (LA-HS), based on cut off scores of total activity energy expenditure and daily screen time above and below 1680 METs-min/week and above or below 3 hours/day, respectively. RESULTS: Results of MANCOVA tests controlling for age revealed that compared with those with LA-HS, adolescents with HA-LS had signifi cantly (<0.001) lower mean (SD) values for BMI (22.6 (5.5) vs 23.7 (6.2)), waist to height ratio (0.45 (.07) vs 0.48 (.08)), and less frequent intakes of sugar-sweetened drinks (3.7 (2.5) vs 4.5 (2.3)), fast foods (2.2 (1.9) vs 2.9 (1.9)), French fries/potato chips (2.1 (2.0) vs 2.9 (2.1)), cakes/donuts (2.4 (2.1) vs 2.7 (2.1)) and sweets (2.5 (2.1)) vs 3.8 (2.3) but more frequent intakes of breakfast (3.9 (2.7) vs 3.3 (2.6)), vegetables (4.4 (2.3) vs 3.5 (2.4)), fruits (4.2 (2.3) vs 2.8 (2.2)) and milk (4.3 (2.5) vs 3.6 (2.5)). CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents with combined high activity energy expenditure and low sedentary behaviors tend to have lower risk of obesity and have more favorable (healthy) dietary habits. These findings carry important implications for adolescent’s health promotion and obesity prevention.American College of Sports Medicin

Prevalence of Overweight, Obesity, and Abdominal Obesity among Urban Saudi Adolescents: Gender and Regional Variations

The nutrition transition with associated lifestyle-related non-communicable diseases has rapidly reached many developing countries, including Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the prevalence of overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity among Saudi adolescents. This school-based multicentre cross-sectional study was conducted during 2009-2010 in three major cities in Saudi Arabia: Al-Khobar, Jeddah, and Riyadh. Participants included 2,908 students of secondary schools (1,401 males and 1,507 females) aged 14 to 19 years, randomly selected using a multistage stratified cluster-sampling technique. Weight, height, and waist-circumference were measured; prevalence of overweight and obesity was determined using age- and sex-specific BMI cutoff reference standards of the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF). Abdominal obesity was determined using waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) cutoffs (above 0.5). The prevalence of overweight was 19.5% in males and 20.8% in females while that of obesity was 24.1% in males and 14% in females. The prevalence of abdominal obesity in males and females was 35.9% and 30.3% respectively. Higher prevalence of obesity was observed among adolescents in private schools. Across all ages, overweight and obesity ranged from 39.9% to 45.6% in males and from 30.4% to 38.7% in females. ANCOVA, controlling for age, showed significant interaction effects (city by gender). It is concluded that the proportions of overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity, observed among Saudi adolescents were remarkably high. Such high prevalence of overweight and obesity is a major public-health concern

Prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection among new outpatients with dyspepsia in Kuwait

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Testing and treatment for <it>Helicobacter pylori </it>has become widely accepted as the approach of choice for patients with chronic dyspepsia but no alarming features. We evaluated <it>H. pylori </it>status among outpatients with uninvestigated dyspepsia in Kuwait.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A prospectively collected database for 1035 patients who had undergone ¹³C-urea breath tests (UBT) for various indications was reviewed for the period from October 2007 to July 2009. The status of <it>H. pylori </it>in dyspeptic patients was determined by UBT.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among the 362 patients who had undergone UBT for uninvestigated dyspepsia, 49.7% were positive for <it>H. pylori </it>(95% CI = 44%-55%) and the percentage increased with age (35.8% at 20-29 years, 95% CI = 25.4% - 47.2%; 59.3% at 30-39 years, 95% CI = 48.5% - 69.5%) (P = 0.013). The prevalence of <it>H. pylori </it>was 42.6% among Kuwaitis (95% CI = 35%-50%) and 57.6% (95% CI = 49.8%-65%) among expatriates (p = 0.004). The prevalence among males was 51.3%, while in females it was 48.6%.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Almost half of the patients with dyspeptic symptoms in Kuwait were positive for <it>H. pylori</it>, though the prevalence varied with age and was higher among expatriates. The American Gastroenterology Association guidelines recommending testing and treatment for <it>H. pylori </it>for patients with uninvestigated dyspepsia should be endorsed in Kuwait.</p

Susceptible exposed infectious recovered-machine learning for COVID-19 prediction in Saudi Arabia

Susceptible exposed infectious recovered (SEIR) is among the epidemiological models used in forecasting the spread of disease in large populations. SEIR is a fitting model for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread prediction. Somehow, in its original form, SEIR could not measure the impact of lockdowns. So, in the SEIR equations system utilized in this study, a variable was included to evaluate the impact of varying levels of social distance on the transmission of COVID-19. Additionally, we applied artificial intelligence utilizing the deep neural network machine learning (ML) technique. On the initial spread data for Saudi Arabia that were available up to June 25th, 2021, this improved SEIR model was used. The study shows possible infection to around 3.1 million persons without lockdown in Saudi Arabia at the peak of spread, which lasts for about 3 months beginning from the lockdown date (March 21st). On the other hand, the Kingdom's current partial lockdown policy was estimated to cut the estimated number of infections to 0.5 million over nine months. The data shows that stricter lockdowns may successfully flatten the COVID-19 graph curve in Saudi Arabia. We successfully predicted the COVID-19 epidemic's peaks and sizes using our modified deep neural network (DNN) and SEIR model