It is unknown if children and youth who live in rural or "less rural" locations who enroll in the provincially funded Generation Health Clinic (British Columbia, Canada), a family-based lifestyle program for weight management, present with different health behaviors at baseline. Thus, we assessed sociodemographic and health behavior (diet, physical activity, and sleep) collected between 2015 and 2019. Data were stratified by age (children: ≤12 years; adolescents: ≥13 years) and geographical location ("less urban" and urban) based on Statistics Canada definitions and then analyzed using independent t-tests and chi-square tests. We found that more "urban" children consumed more daily family meals (p < 0.001), ate out weekly (p = 0.02), ate "other" vegetables (p = 0.002), and had less frequent sports drink consumption (p < 0.001) compared with less urban children. No significant differences in health behaviors were seen in adolescents. These findings suggest that a participant's geographical location should be considered when developing family-based interventions for weight management.
Keywords: childhood obesity; health behaviors; urbanicity; weight management.