Eileen Velasquez

Bio 1615
Sex Difference in under and Over nutrition among School-Going Black teenagers in South
Africa: an Uneven Nutrition Trajectory

Introduction
International obesity task force and World health organization conducted a study in specifics to
Black South African teenagers on nutrition. The study was divided by the sex of these teenagers
and in comparison to the nutritional needs of teenagers in other countries. International
obesity task force noticed there were changes over and under nutrition. Most effective were in
children and young youth to teenagers attending high school. There were 12.6 million children
who go to school in South Africa, that is 28% for the total population of the country. The
information that was collected for the study, the government can create new ideas for healthy
eating habits.
Changes in diets can have a positive impact on the health of children and teenagers in South
Africa. There have been a lot of positive changes in the lifestyle since the democratic elections
in 1994. These changes improved the health choices of teenagers in South Africa.
Although there was no hypothesis in this article, the reason of the study was to see if the
nutrition in South Africa was somewhat the same to other countries.

Material and Methods
A new system was generated to create a more effective system, to retrieve clear
understanding of overweight among the children and teenagers, while using adult BMI level.
12.6 million Children were enrolled in school and 85% were black Africans, Schools had
gathered information and provided education to those children.
The first surveys were taken in 2002. The information was retrieved by height and weight
measurement and recorded by the survey administrator. Equipments such as free-standing
stadiometers and electric scales were used. Those who were under observation were to
remove socks, shoes, jackets, and anything heavy that would not give accurate reading. In such
measurements for the height had to fall within 0.5 of each other, anything outside that the
measurements were repeated. Those who fell into the under-nutrition were categorized as Z-
score. The measurements were compared to the status in the teenagers own countries.
It is important to note that the selected studies were undertaken during different time periods
and included children in various age ranges, with different socio-economic and ethnic
backgrounds (Jinabhai et al,2007)
This showed a variety in the samples for the studies, which was very important information.


Results
The study showed that teenagers in South Africa were the somewhat the same to other
countries. The information that was gathered, on average, the teen age females were three
months younger than the males in the same grade. The females were also shorter, weighed
more, and had a higher BMI compared to males. The BMI, height, and weight increased with
boys and girls as same age.
There was a pattern adding underweight within the ages of the males, the older the males were
the increase of weight followed but became an issue when researchers realized that there
might be over nutrition. Conversations of over nutrition in the teenage females were by far
higher than males. Statistically in the obesity category was no difference in age groups that
were found. When the socio-demographic and anthropometric profile was created researchers
notices that the different studies did not match in the over nutrition study

Discussion
While the information was gathered from the teenagers was similar in comparison to South
Africa as a whole, it was compared to other countries. There were a lot of issues that
contributed to the overweight females. Most living areas require the females to engage in
house hold chores, while the males are expected to participate in physical activities such as
sports. Electronics usage was more prevalent and leads to a sedentary lifestyle.
Studies like such have shown that there is not a comparison between nutrition and income.
International comparison tend to generalize and mask the impact of sex, socio-economic and
geographical factors and variations in nutritional profiles, which are necessary for the country
specific inventions (Jinabhal et al,2007)
There is a variety of health and nutrition that cant be contributed to income level or
geography. The overall change that needs to happen to get improvement and to obtain future
surveys, nutrition surveys need to be changed and by gender to age specific. In males, they
would need food supplements from an early age to prevent any unnecessary development. In
females, especially those overweight in teenage years would need more physical activity,
changes in eating habits to help their behavior.

References
Jinabhai,C.C,Kamarbaran,N.,Monyeki,D.,Omardien,R.,Sullivan,K.R,&Taylor,M.(2007).Sex
differences in under and over nutrition among school-going Black teenagers in South Africa: an
uneven nutrition trajectory.Tropical medicine and International Health ,12(8).944-952.