Prevalence of overweight and obesity among students in university of Kerbala

الملخص EN

Background : overweight and obesity are major public health problems because of their impact on co-morbidity they are major risk factors for a number of chronic diseases.

Recent data worldwide show an absolute increase in the prevalence of obesity in recent years.

Objective : to study the prevalence and factors associated with overweight and obesityamong college students of University of Kerbala in Holy Kerbala, Iraq.

Subjects and Methods : A cross-sectional study started from 1st March 2010–26th April 2010, a total of 463 students (219 male and 244 female) between 18 and 32 years of age (mean 21.28 ± 1.91 year) were selected randomly from the 11 colleges of the university.

A questionnaire was distributed to each subject ; Age, gender, dietary habits, sport activity, family history of obesity ; number of households, monthly family income, were considered, weight, height, waist circumference ; were measured, and BMI was calculated and used to assess weight status.

The data was analyzed using SPSS version 16.0, P-value greater than 0.05 was considered as statistically insignificant.

Results : the mean BMI was 23.58 ± 3.78 kg/m²; about two thirds (65.9 %) of the students were of normal weight (60.7 % of the male students and 70.5 % of the female students); whereas the prevalence of overweight and that of obesity among them was 22.9 % and 5.6 % respectively.

The prevalence of overweight was more common among male students compared to females (27.4 % vs.

18.9 % respectively), while the prevalence of underweight and obesity were not significantly different between them (5.6 % vs.

5.3 % respectively for both variables).

Depending on their waist circumference, 4.6 % of the males and 20.9 % of the females were at higher risk of developing obesity comorbidities.

There was a significantly higher mean BMI (t = 4.905) and waist circumference (t = 3.825) within students with family history of obesity ; (P< 0.001 for both variables).

Male students who reported that they used to practice regular sport activity had significantly lower body mass index and waist circumference.

Conclusions : this study supports the fact that obesity is a multifactorial problem ; it shows that male gender and family history of obesity are risk factors, while regular sport activity is a protective factor.