Health literacy and the determinants of obesity: a population-based survey of sixth grade school children in Taiwan

Table 2 Distribution of BMI across different characteristics

	BMI
Characteristics	Normal		Underweight		Overweight		Obese		P-value¹
	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
Health literacy (quartiles)									<0.0001
Lowest 25 % (0–21)	19,580	45.47	4,954	11.50	11,051	25.66	7,477	17.36
25^th to 50^th percentile (22–26)	22,971	48.01	5,276	11.03	12,110	25.31	7,491	15.66
50^th to 75^th percentile (27–29)	22,190	49.45	4,847	10.80	11,403	25.41	6,434	14.34
Highest 25 % (30–32)	13,360	50.56	2,938	11.12	6,859	25.96	3,268	12.37
Sex									<0.0001
Girl	42,204	53.25	10,299	13.00	18,957	23.92	7,790	9.83
Boy	35,897	43.27	7,716	9.30	22,466	27.08	16,880	20.35
Ethnicity									<0.0001
Hakka, Taiwanese, and Chinese	49,357	48.59	11,156	10.98	25,761	25.36	15,301	15.06
Indigenous	2751	44.97	467	7.63	1,777	29.05	1,123	18.36
Immigrants	1440	45.58	364	11.52	816	25.83	539	17.06
Others/Unknown/Uncertain	24,553	47.81	6,028	11.74	13,069	25.45	7,707	15.01
Self-rated health status									<0.0001
Bad or very bad	2351	24.15	1,127	11.58	2,486	25.53	3,772	38.74
Normal	27,917	44.98	7,028	11.32	16,493	26.57	10,631	17.13
Good	24,839	54.30	4,901	10.71	11,162	24.40	4,845	10.59
Very Good	22,994	51.49	4,959	11.10	11,282	25.26	5,422	12.14
Healthy behaviors (Regular physical activity, Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) intake)									<0.0001
Regular physical activity and no SSB intake	32,432	50.65	6,988	10.91	16,050	25.06	8,564	13.37
Had only one of the healthy behaviors (either regular physical activity or no SSB intake)	37,591	46.70	9,080	11.28	20,867	25.92	12,962	16.10
Had no regular physical activity and consumed SSB	8078	45.70	1,947	11.02	4,506	25.49	3,144	17.79

¹ Chi-square test showing bivariate association between BMI category and other variables

ISSN: 1471-2458