Cross-national time trends in adolescent body weight perception and the explanatory role of overweight/obesity prevalence

Introduction Body weight perception (BWP) is associated with health behaviors. Current evidence points to an increase over time in both actual and perceived weight status among adolescents, however there is limited evidence on time trends in BWP in cross-national samples of adolescents. Therefore, the aims of this study were to examine time trends in BWP between 2002 and 2018 among adolescents from 41 countries and regions, including gender and country differences and to explore the role of changes over time in country-level overweight/obesity prevalence in these trends. Methods Data were used from five cycles (2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018) of the repeated cross-sectional Health Behavior in…