Body mass index and the risk of acute injury in adolescents

To evaluate the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and acute injury in adolescents.

An analysis of cross-sectional data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) Cycle 3.1 collected by Statistics Canada in 2005 was conducted. The CCHS is a population-based survey that collects information pertaining to the Canadian population health status, health care use and health determinants. The CCHS Cycle 3.1 included 132,221 respondents, of whom 12,317 were 12 to 17 years of age. Multivariate logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of injury occurrence by BMI categories (obese, overweight and neither).

The association between overweight and obese BMI levels and injury occurrence in the bivariate model was not significant after adjusting for sex, health status, activity levels and socioeconomic status (OR=1.10 [95% CI 0.97 to 1.24] for overweight and OR=1.12 [95% CI 0.92 to 1.37] for obesity). A subanalysis of those with an injury in the past 12 months found an elevated odds of experiencing multiple injuries in the overweight group, after adjusting for age, health status and physical activity level (OR=1.43 [95% CI 1.16 to 1.77]).

An increased risk of acute injury in obese and overweight adolescents was not observed. However, the subgroup analysis suggested that multiple injuries are relatively frequent in the overweight BMI group.