Internet engagement and its association with weight parameters among Malaysian adolescents / Nurul Haniza Md. Yusof
This study determines the prevalence of regular Internet engagement among Malaysian adolescents to study the socio-demographic variation in Internet engagement. It identifies the association of Internet engagement/time spent on the Internet with weight parameters (body mass index, body fat percen...
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Format: | Thesis |
Published: |
2019
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Online Access: | http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/11591/4/haniza.pdf http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/11591/ |
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Summary: | This study determines the prevalence of regular Internet engagement among Malaysian
adolescents to study the socio-demographic variation in Internet engagement. It identifies
the association of Internet engagement/time spent on the Internet with weight parameters
(body mass index, body fat percentage and waist circumference) and academic
performance (aggregate, Malay language, English language, mathematics subject, and
science subjects) among adolescents in Malaysia. This is a cross-sectional study which
used primary (academic performance) and secondary data from the second wave of the
Malaysian Health and Adolescents Longitudinal Research Team (MyHeART) Study
Cohort. Collected MyHeART data included the measurement of height, weight, body fat
composition, waist circumference, and self-administered questionnaires. The participants
comprised 720 students attending year three public secondary schools from the Kuala
Lumpur, Selangor and Perak, Malaysia. Sampling was done using a two-stage cluster
sampling design. The prevalence of adolescents who engage on the Internet regularly was
85.3% (n=614). Chinese (OR: 9.873, CI: 2.188-44.552) and Malays (OR: 2.379, CI:
1.332-4.251) significantly engaged regularly on the Internet compared to Indians.
Adolescents who schooled in urban areas significantly engaged regularly on the Internet
compared to adolescents schooled in rural areas (OR: 2.663, CI: 1.719 – 4.125). There
was no significant association between Internet engagement or time spent on the Internet
with weight-related parameters. Non-parametric test results recorded that the mean ranks
of overall academic performance (aggregate) was significantly (p-value 0.017) higher
(which indicate poor academic performance) in adolescents who rarely engaged on the
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Internet (413.50), compared to the adolescents who spent on average ≥3hours per day
(350.70) and average <3hours per day on the Internet (352.11). A positive significant
association between Internet engagement and academic performance was found for
English (OR=2.184, CI=1.112-4.289), mathematic (OR=2.093, CI=1.012-4.329) and
aggregate; overall academic performance (OR=2.319, CI=1.118-4.810). Although
generally the trend of less likelihood on getting excellent and average on academic
performance was observed among participants who spent an average of ≥3 hours per day
on the Internet compared to participants who spent <3 hours daily on the Internet,
however, it is non-significant. The significant findings of the association between time
spent on the Internet with mathematics and aggregate were perhaps the effect of a bigger
sample size during the estimation in the population. Furthermore, the confidence interval
that was close to one indicated that the result might be statistically significant but not
clinically significant in view of the minimal differences within each group. Internet
engagement and time spent on the Internet do not associate with weight-related
parameters. However, engagement on the Internet was found to be beneficial for
academic performance. Nevertheless, close monitoring, supervision, and guidance on
Internet engagement among adolescents were relevant.
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