Nutritional Status of 19-Year-Old Adolescents in Urban Areas of Vojvodina - The Republic of Serbia
Nutritional Status of 19-Year-Old Adolescents in Urban Areas of Vojvodina - The Republic of Serbia

Summary/Abstract: Nutritional status reflects the nutritional condition of an individual. The body composition and nutritional condition can be unbalanced by inadequate diet, i.e. increased or reduced intake of certain nutrients. The first critical period for obesity is the early childhood, while the adolescence age is the second critical period for obesity problems. The prevalence of children and adolescents’ obesity has been increasing worldwide (Popkin and Gordon-Larsen, 2004; Dehghan, Akhtar-Danesh and Merchant, 2005). In the USA, the prevalence of obesity in 2 to 19 year-old children and adolescents was 16.9% for the period 2009-2010 (Ogden et al. 2012). The obesity incidence among adolescents in the transition to adulthood has been noticeably high (Gordon-Larsen et al. 2004). An increasing number of overweight and obese adolescents has been recorded worldwide (Georgiadis and Nassis, 2007; Emandi et al. 2013). Higher prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents has also been reported in Serbia. In the period 1995-2002, in Backa (Vojvodina), obesity was detected in 6,9% of boys and 6.7% of girls (Pavlović and Lobstein, 2004). According to the Serbian Institute for Public Health (2008), almost a fifth of children and teenagers from 7 to 19 years of age (18%) are either overweight (11.6%) or obese (6.4%). In the year 2000, the recorded values were 8.2% and 4.4%, respectively. In the town of Jagodina (Central Serbia), for example, the prevalence of overweight is 10.80%, and obesity is present in 5.60% of cases (Pavlica et al. 2012).The aim of the present study was to assess the nutritional status of 19-year-old adolescents in Vojvodina.

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