Fast-food outlets availability,nutritional status and household food security level among adolescents in Kuantan, Pahang

Abstract

The global and local growth of fast-food outlets and the high acceptance level of their products by consumers show that people nowadays prefer easy and convenient food choices such as food from fast-food outlets due to busy and hectic lifestyle. There are abundant evidence that linked fast-food consumption with obesity and household food insecurity with overeating. However, there are not enough data mentioning the association between fast-food outlets availability with adolescent’s weight status and how they relate to food insecurity level in Malaysia. Therefore, this study aims to determine the relationship of fast-food outlets availability with nutritional status and household food insecurity among adolescents in Kuantan, Pahang. Five hundred and thirty secondary high school students from district of Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia were measured for their weights and heights. The validated food security questionnaire known as Radimer/Cornell Hunger and Food Security Instrument (Malay version) was used to measure food insecurity. The ArcGIS Network Analyst extension was used to create a network dataset to generate 400-meter, 800-meter and 1500-m service areas around each school and number of fast-food outlets available within each buffer were recorded. From a total of 530 students, 60% of them have normal BMIAZ while 16.6%, 14.2% and 9.2% were overweight, obese and thinness, respectively. This study, however, did not find any significant factors associated with adolescents’ nutritional status. There were 76.6% households were classified as food insecure in which divided into household food insecure (31.5%), individual food insecure (7.6%) and child hunger (37.5%). This study also found that the adolescents with working mothers had 0.58 times odds of food insecurity compared to those whom their mothers not working (95% CI: 0.33,0.98; p-value 0.037). Spatial analysis found that, no significant association between fast-food outlets availability with adolescents’ nutritional status. This study also clearly showed the co-existing of over-nutrition and undernutrition among adolescents in Kuantan. However, this study did not find any association between food insecurity and obesity among the adolescents (p-value=0.091). Further study should be done to identify the possible complex interaction of food insecurity and adolescents’ weight status. Intervention study should be planned and carried out to address these alarming issues.