Magnitude of sedentary behavior and associated factors among secondary school adolescents in Debre Berhan town, Ethiopia.

Background: Sedentary life style is becoming increasingly common in this industrial age due to changes on the way people manufacture, transport and communicate. Sedentary lifestyle is associated with chronic diseases (diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer), depression, obesity and premature mortality. The objective of this study was to assess the magnitude and associated factors of sedentary behavior.

Methods: School based cross sectional study was conducted among 580 students from April 20 to May 10, 2019 in secondary schools in Debre Berhan City Administration. Sedentary behavior was measured using time spent on four activities (watching TV/Video, listening to music, surfing internet and playing games). Adolescents are considered sedentary if they spend two or more hours in one or all listed activities per day. Data was entered to Epidata version 4.2.2.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis.

Result: A total of 580 (44.3% male and 55.7% female) students participated in this study. The magnitude of sedentary behavior (≥2 h per day) was 65.5% (95% CI = 61.32% - 69.08). Family monthly income greater than 8000 birr (AOR: 6.42, 95%CI = 2.18-18.78), maternal education (AOR: 5.12, 95%CI = 1.09-23.83), access to TV (AOR: 4.87, 95%CI = 1.99-11.87), access to mobile internet (AOR: 2.37, 95% CI = 1.14-4.93) and utilization of social media (AOR: 2.98, 95%CI = 1.43-6.17) were positively associated with adolescent sedentary behavior.

Conclusion: The prevalence of sedentary behavior was high among adolescents of Debre Berhan town. Therefore, schools in the town should work towards creating awareness on the wise use of screen based entertainments.