ABSTRACT

Background & Objective: Today's generation is facing a major health problem that is obesity. It is becoming an epidemic leading to diabetes, hypertension and Ischemic heart diseases. Medical students due to over stress and peer pressure of studies are not able to be involved in physical activities and so they develop inappropriate snacking habits. This makes them vulnerable to this epidemic disease.Human ability to consume energy stores declines after 40 years and they gain weight with the exact amount of food they take before 40 years. According to survey African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries are facing obesity. Today's medical students are tomorrow's doctors so they should be a role model for the community. Methodology: This was a formal questionnaire based cross-sectional study to observe the factors influencing medical students’ BMI. This study was conducted at Rahbar Medical and Dental College (RMDC) Lahore Pakistan. The survey was conducted after ethical clearance by the college’s ethical clearance committee. The respondents were students from 1st year to 5th year MBBS studying in RMDC. Results: The data was obtained from 137 medical students of Rahbar Medical College; among the total respondents 85 (62%) were female and 52 (38%) were male students. Among 137 students 88 (63%) of these respondents were within normal BMI range (18.5-24.9), 39 (20%) were found overweight and obese while 14 (12%) found underweight. Out of the total respondents 59 (43%) students were performing 2-3 times exercise per week, 16 (12.4%) were doing exercise 4-5 times per week, 25 (18.2%) were doing exercise daily, 5 (4%) had other physical activity, while 32 (23%) had no physical activity throughout the week. It was also observed that physical activities during regular week was 33(25%) and during examination was 100 (73%). It was observed 32(23%) of the respondents consume 4 or more drinks per week while 42(31%) did not consumed a single drink per day. Out of the total respondents 38 (28%) had less than 6 hours sleep while 98 (72%) had more than 6 hours sleep. Conclusions This study concludes that, most of the students had normal BMI. The group with the normal BMI had the highest physical activity. The sleep pattern observed normal BMI group was getting sleep for mostly between 6-8 hours/day. The consumption of carbonated drinks was not high in the group of normal BMI. Keywords: BMI, Medical Students, Exercise, Sleep, Carbonated drinks, Examination
Publication date: 01/01/2022

https://ijbpas.com/pdf/2022/January/MS_IJBPAS_2022_5844.pdf

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https://doi.org/10.31032/IJBPAS/2022/11.1.5844