ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Children and Health
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Research and Prevention of Overweight and Obesity in YouthView all 12 articles
Adolescent Health Behavior Patterns and Weight Status: A Cross-Sectional Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou, China
- 2Zhejiang medical & health group Quzhou hospital of Hangzhou medical college, quzhou, China
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Background Adolescent weight status is shaped by co-occurring behaviors, but variable-centered analyses may obscure heterogeneous patterns. Person-centered approaches can clarify how these patterns relate to BMI. Objective To identify adolescent health behavior patterns and assess their associations with BMI categories. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 1,212 students in grades 7–8 from Lin'an District, Hangzhou, China. Six behavior indicators (diet, sugary drinks, outdoor activity, anxiety control, weight-management awareness, and management needs) informed a latent class analysis. Logistic regression, adjusting for demographic and psychosocial factors, estimated associations between class membership and BMI status. Results: Three health behavior patterns emerged: passive health maintenance (50.9%), self-disciplined health type (32.7%), and high-risk lifestyle (16.5%). Compared to the self-disciplined group, the passive group showed significantly increased risks of overweight (OR=1.62, 95% CI: 1.02–2.57) and obesity (OR=1.68, 95% CI: 1.13– 2.50), while the high-risk group showed a trend toward increased obesity risk (OR=1.57, 95% CI: 0.96–2.57, P=0.072). Female students exhibited lower risks of overweight (OR=0.56, 95% CI: 0.36–0.87) and obesity (OR=0.41, 95% CI: 0.28– 0.59) compared to males; eighth-grade students had a lower risk of obesity than seventh-grade students (OR=0.59, 95% CI: 0.40 – 0.87). Additionally, good sleep quality reduced the likelihood of belonging to the high-risk group (OR=0.30, 95% CI: 0.17–0.53), and emotional eating increased the risk of being in the passive group (OR=1.74, 95% CI: 1.31–2.32). Conclusions: Early adolescents show distinct health behavior patterns with differential weight outcomes. The large passive group, though not overtly high-risk, carries significant overweight risk, highlighting a "moderate-risk blind spot" in weight management. Identifying behavior clusters and tailoring interventions by behavioral profile and sociodemographic context may improve adolescent obesity prevention.
Keywords: Adolescent health behaviors, latent class analysis (LCA), Body weight status, BMI classification, Health intervention
Received: 02 Sep 2025; Accepted: 20 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 zhang, miao, gui, liu, ding and wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
lilu ding, i.ding@hmc.edu.cn
qiuli wang, wqqxb1013@163.com
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