Association Between Time Spent on Electronic Devices and Body Mass Index in Young Adults

To evaluate the association between time spent on electronic devices (TSED) and body mass index in young adults.

This cross-sectional study was conducted from June to December 2021 on 1877 students (aged 18-22 yrs) from multiple health Colleges of Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University. The main tools of the study were 1) Body mass index (BMI) and an online questionnaire. The subjects were categorized into 3 main groups based on their TSED: 1) Low TSED < 2 hours/day, 2) Medium TSED= 3 to 5 hours/day, 3) Excessive TSED ≥ 6 hours /day. Based on BMI, subjects were categorized into three main groups: Normal and underweight (BMI ≤ 24.9), overweight (BMI > 25-29.9), and obese (BMI > 30).

Participants' average age was 20 ± 2 years. The average BMI was 23.5 k/m². The % of students falling into the categories of normal weight, overweight, and obesity was 69.2%, 19.05%, and 11.7% respectively. The average TSED of study participants was 8.2 ± 3.45 hrs /24 hours. 71.15% of participants indicated a TSED of ≥6 hrs/24 hours and 23.71% reported a TSED of 3-5 hrs/24 hours. Only 3.15% of participants reported TSED of ≤2 hrs/24 hours. Although a rise in the mean BMI was observed with an increase in the TSED, but this difference was not statistically significant. The pairwise wise comparison also failed to demonstrate any difference in BMI between different categories of TSED. Furthermore, no significant positive correlation was found between increased BMI and excessive TSED (P = 0.37).

A high percentage of young adults (31.2%) were overweight or obese, but excessive TSED was not significantly associated with increased BMI in this study population. Further studies are recommended to identify the effects of other factors in causing increased BMI in young adults.