Association between the time spent watching television and the sociodemographic characteristics with the presence of overweight and obesity in Colombian adolescents (secondary analysis of the ENSIN 2010)

Objective: To determine the association between the time spent watching television and the sociodemographic characteristics with the presence of overweight and obesity in Colombian adolescents. Materials and methods: Secondary analysis of the information obtained in the National Survey of the Nutritional Situation 2010 of Colombia, in a probabilistic sample of 18177 adolescents with an age range between 13 and 17 years. Results: The prevalence of overweight was 13.0% (95% CI 12.4–13.8) and obesity was 3.0% (95% CI 2.8–3.3). The prevalences of overweight and obesity were higher in adolescent women [16.6% (95% CI 15.8–17.5) and 3.4% (95% CI 3.1–3.7), respectively]. Conclusions: The population studied has a significant prevalence of overweight and obesity, being overweight is associated with being a woman, a high socioeconomic status, residing in an urban area, having an indigenous ethnicity, watching television for three days during the week and looking at more than two hours of television in a day; Obesity is associated with being a woman, a medium-high and high socioeconomic status, residing in an urban area, Afro-Colombian ethnicity, watching television at least once in the last week and watching television every day during the last week.