Abstract
Background & Aim: The Problem of overweight and obesity is not confined only to developed countries but also prevalent in developing countries. The main objective of this study was to ascertain association between biosocial characteristics and nutritional status of adolescents.
Methodology: This was a cross sectional descriptive study, 680 school going adolescents, aged 10-19 years were enrolled by using multi stage random sampling technique. Predesigned and pretested questionnaire was used to elicit information on biosocial characteristics and anthropometric variables. Age and gender specific percentile growth charts of 2007 WHO reference was used to classify subjects as overweight and obese.
Result: The overall prevalence of overweight was 22.7 percent. The prevalence of overweight was 28.1 percent among boys and 18.8 percent among females. Primary predictors for overweight in our study were type of family, education and occupation of mother, multivariate analysis showed that the prevalence of overweight was significantly higher among adolescents whose mothers were working.[OR: 24.7 (95% CI: 8.05-75.9)].
Conclusion: This study pinpoints towards over nutrition amongst adolescents who lived in nuclear family and belonged to upper middle class of socio economic status, biosocial characteristics like type of family, education and occupation of the parents were various factors incriminating for over nutrition in adolescents, which needs to be urgently addressed.

Key words: Socio- economic status, overweight, BMI.