Concept Paper

Leader: Nina Nalitan

Members:
Rachel Curato
Noel Burnasal
Justin Rosales
Athaesha Salvo

“Clustering of lifestyle risk behaviors and its determinants among school-going

adolescents in Philippines.”

Introduction:
Adolescence is one of the most important developmental periods in which person
grows. It is a transition phase between childhood and adulthood. Children entering
puberty are experiencing a variety of changes (physical, intellectual, personal and social
developmental). The changes in adolescence have health consequence not only in
adolescence but also over the life-course. Just as pregnancy and menopause can have
an effect on a woman’s mouth, so too can puberty. During puberty, estrogen and
progesterone hormones cause a girl’s body to mature. This increase of sex hormones
triggers the dilation of small blood vessels in the gums that can result in redness,
bleeding, and swelling. Adolescence lifestyle typically reflects on their attitudes, way of
life, values, or world view. A lifestyle is a means of forging a sense of self and to create
cultural symbols that resonate with personal identity. Lifestyle risk behaviors such as
smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, sedentary behavior and low
fruit/vegetable intake have been identified as the major causes of chronic diseases, and
also affect student’s academic. Among young people, the short-term health
consequences of smoking include respiratory and non-respiratory effects, addiction to
nicotine, and the associated risk of other drug use. Smoking, vaping, drug use or
drinking alcohol can affect student’s mental health and possibly intellectual disability.
According to research mostly people or students who smoke can cause dementia or
loss of brain volume, which result of a student to have a low grades. Such behaviors are
usually instigated in adolescence and tend to persist into adulthood. Studies on the
clustering of lifestyle risk behaviors among adolescents are scarce, particularly in
developing countries. 

Need for this Study:

In the 2010 Philippine census, there were 18,045,895 aged 15-24 comprising 19.6% of
the total population. Among all youth, 38.8 per cent have ever smoked, significantly
more among males (56%) than females (22%). However, only 19.7 per cent of all youth
are currently smoking, with a notable gender disparity; only 4.7 per cent of females are
currently smoking but the corresponding prevalence among males is 35.4 per cent. The
proportion currently smoking is higher in the older (26%) than the younger (16%) cohort.
Current smoking is most prevalent among youth with elementary level schooling (32%);
it is lowest among the college educated (13%). The prevalence of smoking is highest in
NCR (27%) and Central Luzon (25%) and lowest in ARMM (12%) and
SOCCSKSARGEN (13%). On the average, males started to smoke earlier (mean age of
15.7 years) than females (mean age of 16.3 years). Across the regions, the mean age
of starting to smoke regularly falls within a narrow range from 15.5 years
(SOCCSKSARGEN) to 16.4 years (Eastern Visayas). Among the sexual behaviors
tracked by the YAFS series is early sexual initiation, defined as beginning sexual activity
before age 18. Sexual initiation signals the start of the exposure to the risk of
reproduction and childbearing as well of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The
results of the three YAFS rounds indicate an increasing proportion of youth who have
begun sexual activity before age 18, from 13 per cent in 1994 to 23 per cent in 2013 for
both males and females. Among males, this proportion increased from 13.8 per cent in
1994 to 25.1 per cent in 2013 while for females the increase was from 12 per cent in
1994 to 22 per cent two decades later. The proportion who had their sexual initiation
before age 18 is highest among those with elementary schooling (30%) and decreases
as education increases. The proportion who had early sexual initiation among those
with college education is 16.9 per cent. Among the regions, the proportion of youth with
early sexual initiation is highest in NCR at 30.6 per cent and lowest in ARMM at 15.6
percent. The concept is intended to identify how many students or adolescence affected
their lifestyle in unintended/intended behavioral treats.

Background:
Several studies have concluded that adolescence is one of the critical transitions in
human growth during which young adults undergo tremendous physiological and
psychological developments to transition into adulthood. Previous studies have
demonstrated that adolescents tend to engage in a spectrum of lifestyle risk behaviors,
such as smoking, drinking alcohol, being physically inactive, engaging in sedentary
behavior and having low fruit/vegetable intake; these unhealthy behaviors are more
likely to continue into adulthood. According to Jessor’s problem-behavior theory,
adolescents tend to be involved in more than one problem behavior due to shared
linkages of such behaviors in the social ecology of adolescence. This clustering of risk
behaviors is distinct from the co-occurrence of multiple risk behaviors, as the former
occurs due to an underlying association between the co-occurring risk behaviors, while
the latter merely describes the concurrent but independent engagement in multiple risk
behaviors.

Objectives:
The concept paper seeks to achieve its general objective of clustering risk lifestyle
behaviors and its determinants among school-going adolescence in Philippines by
focusing on the following specific objectives:
1. To elaborate the distinct between adolescence and lifestyle.
2. To evaluate risk lifestyle behaviors (low fruit and vegetable intake, drinking
alcohol, physical inactivity, smoking, drug use, sedentary behavior) 
4. To measure the percentage of adolescence engage in a spectrum of lifestyle risk
behaviors.

The concept will therefore

be intended to identify
The concept will therefore
be intended to identify
The concept will therefore
be intended to identify