Inter-relationships between health risk behaviors in adolescents

Resumen

The elevated proportion of adolescents with multiple risk factors for cardiovascular diseases suggests that there are strict relationships between several different types of health risk behavior that predispose towards the emergence of these factors. The objective of the present study was to analyze possible relationships between health risk behaviors in adolescent schoolchildren from the city of João Pessoa, PB, Brazil. The study sample comprised 2,768 adolescent secondary schoolchildren (1,222 boys and 1,546 girls), aged 14 to 18 years. The following factors were analyzed: i) sociodemographic data: sex, age, economic class and parents’ educational level; ii) health risk behaviors: physical inactivity (<37kcal/kg/day), low frequency of fruit and vegetable intake (<5days/week), smoking and alcoholic drinks (?once/week). Physical inactivity had a positive relationship with low intake of fruit (RP=1.10; 95%CI=1.01-1.19) and vegetables (RP=1.16; 95%CI=1.07- 1.26). The probability of exhibiting low frequency of fruit intake was approximately twice as great (RP=1.89; 95%CI=1.70- 2.10) among adolescents who reported that they ate vegetables <5days/week. Drinking alcoholic beverages increased the chance of an adolescent being a smoker by 15 times (RP=15.0; 95%CI= 6.7-33.7). Health risk behaviors proved to be strictly related with each other, which emphasizes the need for health promotion programs to intervene in several different risk behaviors simultaneously.