Obesogenicity of private secondary school environments in urban Ibadan, Nigeria: a cross-sectional assessment

Obesity in adolescence has been recognized as a global public health issue. However, information regarding the obesogenicity of school environments is lacking, particularly for private schools that have been implicated in contributing to unhealthy food environment. This study was designed to assess the obesogenicity of private secondary school environments in three urban local government areas (LGAs) of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. This descriptive, cross-sectional study involved 101 private secondary schools selected using a total sampling technique across Ibadan North, Ibadan South-East, and Ibadan North-West LGAs. Data were obtained from school administrators using an interviewer-administered questionnaire which included socio-demographic characteristics, Oyo State checklist for approval and observation of the school environments, and an adapted whole-school environmental mapping questionnaire based on ANGELO framework. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to compare scores across the three LGAs. Compliance was categorized as good (≥ 60%) and poor (< 60%). The mean age of the respondents was 45.74 ± 5.99 years, and 55.4% were males. The private secondary schools were from Ibadan North (48.5%), Ibadan South-East (29.7%), and Ibadan North-West (21.8%) LGAs. Compliance in the physical environment domain was low across all LGAs: 35.3% in Ibadan North, 28.6% in Ibadan South-East and 36.0% in Ibadan North-West. Economic environment compliance was also poor: 29.1% in Ibadan North, 36.1% in Ibadan South-East, and 34.7% in Ibadan North-West, with no statistically significant differences ( p > 0.05). Ibadan North-West had the highest compliance in political (34.9%) and sociocultural (33.5%) domains. Major challenges included lack of parental support, economic constraints, and limited resources for physical activity and healthy food provision. Evidence of obesogenicity exists across all sampled private school environments, with particularly poor compliance in physical and economic domains. Structural interventions targeting food canteen standards, physical activity infrastructure, and policy enforcement, alongside enhanced parental engagement, are needed to transform private school environments in urban Nigeria.