Recovering Male Adolescent Obesity at 12-14 Aged Childhood in Dhaka: A Case Study

Abstract

Childhood obesity is a rising social health issue in South Asia, but regulated data on school-based physical education (PE) as an intervention therapy of adolescent males is limited. This paper has discussed the possibility of a 12-week daily school based PE to enhance anthropometric and fitness outcomes associated with obesity among 12-14-year-old male adolescents in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Thirty obese/overweight male students (mean age 13.2 ± 0.5 years) were randomly allocated to either active (45-minute structured PE, 5 days/week) or inactive control (simple versions of the standard curriculum) group (n = 15 in each group). BMI, waist circumference, waist-height ratio, 6-minute walk distance, push-up count (60 seconds), sit-and-reach flexibility, and knowledge about obesity were measured at pre- and post-intervention. Paired t-tests were used for within-group differences and independent t-tests for between-group differences (α = 0.05); Cohen’s d was used to calculate effect sizes. Significant improvements were observed in all seven outcomes (p < 0.01) in the active group, including a decrease in BMI (1.3 kg/m², d = 0.85), waist circumference (4.3 cm, d = 0.81), and an increase in the 6-minute walk distance (92 m, d = 1.15) and the number of push-ups (7.2, d = 1.08). The control group showed no significant physical changes, with non-significant changes in BMI (+0.6 kg/m², p = 0.052) and waist circumference (+1.2 cm, p = 0.064). Between-group comparisons at post-test favored the active group in all physical measures (p < 0.01), but gains in knowledge were statistically similar between groups (p = 0.232). Daily school-based physical education resulted in clinically significant, substantially large changes in body composition, cardiovascular fitness, and muscular strength in male adolescents in a low-resource, urban South Asian environment, but obesity-related knowledge alone did not translate into physiological change. These results support policy interest in mandatory PE in high schools as an inexpensive, accessible intervention for adolescent obesity.