Childhood obesity in urban Ghana: evidence from a cross-sectional survey of in-school children aged 5–16 years

BMC Public Health

Table 6 Predictors of childhood obesity (multivariate) (N = 285)

Variable	cOR (95% C.I.)	p-value	aOR (95% C.I.)	p-value
Age of child (years)
5–10 (ref)	1		1
11–16	7.60 (1.29–24.94)	0.032**	6.07 (1.17–21.45)	0.025**
Father’s education
No education (ref)	1		1
Basic	1.93 (0.73–5.09)	0.185	1.46 (0.51–4.15)	0.483
Secondary	3.86 (1.52–9.78)	0.004**	2.97 (1.09–8.08)	0.032**
Tertiary	4.20 (1.67–10.59)	0.002**	3.46 (1.27–9.42)	0.015**
Sports activity per week^a
< 3 days (ref)	1		1
> 3 days	0.58 (0.36–0.95)	0.030**	0.56 (0.33–0.96)	0.034**
Regularity of fizzy drinks intake^b
Hardly or never (ref)	1		1
Some days	2.39 (1.06–5.38)	0.035**	2.09 (0.84–5.16)	0.112
Most days	3.36 (1.60–7.06)	0.001**	2.84 (1.24–6.52)	0.014**
Sleep hours per day
Less than 5 h (ref)	1		1
5–8 h	0.66 (0.31–1.41)	0.286	0.70 (0.31–1.57)	0.391
8+ h	0.32 (0.16–0.63)	0.001**	0.38 (0.19–0.79)	0.009**

^aSports activity was defined as engaging in any of the following: playing football, basketball, tennis, volley ball and ampe as well as running and cycling)
Ampe is a simple jumping game played by school-age children (mostly girls), in Ghana and neighbouring countries and usually involving two or more players and requires no equipment
^bFizzy drinks were defined as non-alcoholic soft drinks that contain carbonated water, a sweetener (sweetener may be sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice, a sugar substitute, or some combination of these), and a natural or artificial flavouring
**p < 0.05; cOR Crude odds ratio, aOR Adjusted odds ratio - aOR for each observation was derived a model which included all variables in the table; CI Confidence interval, ref Reference category

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