Discipline: Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
Subcategory: Social Sciences/Psychology/Economics
Session: 3
Azriel A. Williams - University of the Virgin Islands
Co-Author(s): Janis Valmond, DrPH, University of the Virgin Islands, VI
The purpose of this secondary data analysis is to examine the association among sex, ideal and self body perceptions, depression and obesity in a representative sample of United States Virgin Islands (USVI) adolescents. The research hypothesis is that there is an association among sex, ideal and self body perceptions, depression, and obesity, in USVI adolescents. There is little to no published research on obesity among adolescents in USVI youth and adult obesity has a high prevalence in the USVI. The School Physical Activity and Nutrition survey (SPAN) was initially created to be a surveillance system to monitor the pervasiveness of obesity in youth in Texas. The SPAN survey, adapted and determined reliable for use with USVI youth, was administered to public school students on the east end of St. Thomas, USVI during May-June 2015. Secondary data from 11th-grade participants was analyzed. Body perception is considered a part of self-concept and is a person’s view of his or her physical attributes. Both ideal body perception and self body perception were measured using body images. Depression is characterized as a negative mood disorder, and was measured using one question from the SPAN. Obesity is a person’s weight that is higher than what is considered as a healthy weight, which was measured as ≥95%ile of BMI according to CDC’s Child and Youth BMI Calculator. Of the 111 participants, 60% were female and 90% were African American. Although 11.7% of males were classified as obese, only 6.5% perceived themselves as obese. For the females 28.4% were obese, but 16.9% of females perceived themselves as obese. Binomial logistic regression was not significant. However, both sex (p < .001) and female self-perceived obesity (p < .001) were significantly associated with obesity. Females were more likely to be obese than the males and females’ body self-perceptions were consistent with obesity. There was no significant association between depression and obesity. Future studies should have a more robust test for depression, a larger sample of students, and more questions that would allow more in-depth investigation of psychosocial variables.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): I would like to thank the Emerging Caribbean Scientists program at the University of the Virgin Islands. I would also like to thank the Caribbean Exploratory Research Center located at the University of the Virgin Islands. This study was supported, in part, by NSF HBCU-UP Scholars. Grant Number 1137472 to the University of the Virgin Islands.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Janis Valmond, janis.valmond@uvi.edu
Role: I did the statistical analysis of the secondary data.