Table 1.

Sociodemographic and behavioural characteristics of the sample of secondary-school students from Alberta (n 3330) and Ontario (n 38 499) participating in Year 2 of the COMPASS study, Canada, 2013/14

	Total		Alberta		Ontario
Characteristic	n	%	n	%	n	%	P value†
Gender
Female	20 946	50·1	1682	50·5	19 264	50·0	0·601
Male	20 883	49·9	1648	49·5	19 235	50·0
Grade
9	10 824	25·9	491	14·7	10 333	26·8	<0·001
10	11 023	26·3	1077	32·3	9946	25·8
11	10 448	25·0	951	28·6	9497	24·7
12	9534	22·8	811	24·4	8723	22·7
Ethnicity
White	31 395	75·0	2462	73·9	28 933	75·2	<0·001
Aboriginal	1451	3·5	357	10·7	1094	2·8
Asian	2136	5·1	129	3·9	2007	5·2
Black	1533	3·7	58	1·7	1475	3·8
Latin	778	1·9	12	0·4	766	2·0
Other	4536	10·8	312	9·4	4224	11·0
Weekly spending money
$CAN 0	6641	15·9	469	14·1	6172	16·0	<0·001
$CAN 1–20	12 053	28·8	619	18·6	11 434	29·7
$CAN 21–100	11 141	26·6	951	28·5	10 190	26·5
>$CAN 100	6711	16·1	762	22·9	5949	15·5
I don’t know/missing	5283	12·6	529	15·9	4754	12·3
Weight status
Underweight	647	1·6	55	1·7	592	1·5	<0·001
Healthy weight	24 055	57·5	1809	54·3	22 246	57·8
Overweight	5968	14·3	484	14·5	5484	14·2
Obese	2688	6·4	275	8·3	2413	6·3
Missing	8471	20·2	707	21·2	7764	20·2
Truancy
Skipped 0 classes in last 4 weeks	29 759	71·1	2105	63·2	27 654	71·8	<0·001
Skipped 1+classes in last 4 weeks	12 070	28·9	1225	36·8	10 845	28·2
Weight goal
Not trying to do anything about weight	9506	22·7	897	26·9	8609	22·4	<0·001
Gain weight	7553	18·1	482	14·5	7071	18·4
Lose weight	17 224	41·2	1381	41·5	15 843	41·1
Stay the same weight	7546	18·0	570	17·1	6976	18·1
	Mean	sd	Mean	sd	Mean	sd	P value║
Weekday SSB consumption‡
Frequency of consuming soft drinks	1·75	1·73	1·94	1·74	1·73	1·72	<0·001
Frequency of consuming sweetened coffees/teas	1·41	1·73	1·52	1·73	1·40	1·73	<0·001
Frequency of consuming energy drinks	0·31	0·92	0·58	1·23	0·29	0·88	<0·001
Composite SSB score§	3·46	3·01	4·04	3·32	3·41	2·98	<0·001

SSB, sugar-sweetened beverage.

^†The χ ² test was used to examine differences by province.

^‡Number of days in a typical school week (Monday to Friday, 0–5 days).

^§A composite score, ranging from 0 to 15, representing the sum of participants’ weekday rates of consuming the three distinct SSB categories.

^║Two-sided Wilcoxon rank-sum procedure used to examine differences by province.