Prevalence of overweight and obesity among first year health science students of srm university

Background: Obesity is highly associated with development of life-style diseases such as diabetes mellitus, hyper tension, cardiovascular diseases etc. Since a status of obesity among the first year students is not known we intended to investigate it. OBJECTIVES: To assess the prevalence of obesity and over-weight among First year of Health Science students and its associated factors. Methodolgy: An Analytical Cross-Sectional Study of 262 normal healthy 2013-2014 batch of undergraduate students, both the genders with age group 17-20 years were included in the study. Waist circumference was measured along with the BMI. Measurable Outcome: A) Body Mass Index, B) Waist circumference RESULT: It has been observed that the prevalence of obesity and over-weight among Health Science students is 23.3% and 13.3%, respectively. There is no gender variation in this distribution (p=0.74). There is positive correlation between BMI and Waist circumference (r=0.734, p<0.05) where the mean waist circumference (89.5±1.4) among the obese individuals were higher when compared to over-weight (83.7±0.9) and normal subjects (75.7±0.5) and it is statistically significant (f=72.23, p<0.05) Conclusion: Prevalence of BMI seems to be high which is highly correlated with central obesity (Waist circumference) also sedentary lifestyle were significant and it is related with increased BMI.