Background: Prevalence of overweight and obesity is rapidly increasing among adolescent age. One of the reasons is change in lifestyle and behavior practices. Adolescent population and health of adolescents have a special concern. In late adolescence there is transition from school to college or university. This transition to college life often worsens lifestyle and dietary habits among late adolescents. Present study was carried out to assess lifestyle and nutritional status of late adolescent.Methods: A cross sectional study were carried out involving 140 late adolescent students of 17-19 years after obtaining permission from college principle using preformed questionnaire. Subsequently anthropometric measurements like weight in kg and height in meters, waist and hip circumference in centimetre were measured using standard assessment measures.Results: Out of 140 students 51 (36.4%) were boys and 89 (63.6%) were girls. Mean age of the students was 18.13±0.79 years. Overall prevalence of overweight and obesity was 49 (35%) and 29 (20.7%) respectively. No significant difference in BMI for boys and girls. Waist circumference and waist hip ratio was more in girls compared with boys. More than half 53.6% had mixed diet pattern. Among study participants 55.7% have green leafy vegetables in their diet and 62.8% have fruit in their diet. Most frequent unhealthy diet practice was intake of junk food 85% followed by fast food.Conclusions: High prevalence of obesity and overweight in late adolescent indicate an urge to start primordial and primary intervention since childhood.
Background: Creating awareness about NCD prevention and screening medical students’ nutritional status will help them to follow a healthy lifestyle. Thus, ensuring that as future doctors, they will be effective in community education of NCD prevention through their own health.
Methods: A two-hour awareness session was taken for 150 medical students to explain importance of assessing their risk factors for NCD. The age range was 18-21 years. They were offered a free health check-up and 89.33% (136) signed up. For screening of obesity - anthropometric measurements were taken 1) weight by electronic weighing scale 2) height- using analog measuring tape 3) waist hip measurement 4) body fat composition measured by Omron (Karada scan- body composition monitor HBF-375). BMI was calculated using both WHO and Asian cut-offs and waist circumference using WHO and ICMR cut-offs.
Results: In 132 (M=55, F=79) participants, significant incidence was seen of overweight (21.21%), obesity (43.18%) by Asia Pacific BMI standards and 36.36% overweight, 36.36% obesity by total body fat measurement. Abdominal obesity measured by waist circumference was seen in 3.22% of males and 21.52% of females by WHO; 15.09% of males and 41.77% of females by ICMR standards. Females showed a higher incidence of obesity and overweight than males according to Asia Pacific BMI, total fat percent and ICMR waist circumference.
Conclusions: These students will benefit from interventions to inculcate a healthy lifestyle and maintain a healthy weight. Healthy medical students tracking into healthy doctors will act as ambassadors for NCD prevention.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.