Assessment of the Relationship between Self-efficacy and Meal Frequency in Overweight and Obese Female Students of Middle Schools of Shahinshahr, Iran

The prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents has increased to a considerable level internationally. One of the most important causes of childhood obesity is the lack of meal frequency. Self-efficacy has been considered as one of the most important psychological factors which can affect nutritional behaviors of adolescents in previous studies. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the relationship between self-efficacy and meal frequency in obese adolescents of Shahinshahr, Iran.
This cross-sectional study was conducted on 172 overweight and obese female students who studied in schools in Shahinshahr in 2013-2014. After simple random sampling and assessment of anthropometric indicators, the self-efficacy and meal frequency questionnaire was completed by the students. Data were analyzed using SPSS software.
Findings: The mean of age and BMI were 13.4 ± 0.6 and 28.2 ± 3.6, respectively. BMI had a significant inversely relationship with eating breakfast, and morning and afternoon snacks (P Eating breakfast was effectively predicted by self-efficacy in obese students. It seems that to better understand the relationship between psychological constructs and eating breakfast, further studies, especially interventional studies, are required.