Burden of combined obesity among students of a medical college in Guntur city of Andhra Pradesh
Abstract
Background: Obesity is a major public health problem especially in adolescent age group. Obesity is now recognized as a chronic or non-communicable disease. Medical students are not an exception to this fast spreading epidemic, despite their medical knowledge. Few studies in fact have reported higher prevalence among medical fraternity than general population. Also, based on scientific evidence of higher proportion body fat than muscle mass among Asian Indians, the actual prevalence may be higher than what is assessed by WHO cut off for BMI. In some cases central obesity is very high in individuals whom the BMI is normal. Both BMI and WC in combination would be better predictors of obesity related diseases than sole using of BMI or WC alone. Very limited knowledge is available on combined obesity. So, we planned this study to know its burden especially among medical students.
Methodology: It was a cross-sectional study at a medical college in Andhra Pradesh. A total of 207 medical students were selected from first and third semesters by simple random selection. Data was collected on sociodemographic data and the data of height and weight (BMI, General obesity), waist circumference (Central obesity). Finally, we estimated the burden of combined obesity (BMI+C.O).
Results: It was observed that 35 (16.91%) medical students were having combined obesity (obesity according to BMI and waist circumference G.O + C.O). Among them 15 (20%) are male, and 20 (15.15%) are female students.
Conclusions: The present study gives an idea about the high prevalence of combined obesity in the medical students. This should be an alert signal because medical students are the future doctors, health leaders and role models to the community. So, we need to identify specific barriers among medical students and come up with workable solutions.
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