Frequency of Overweight and Obesity in Students of Medical College of Lahore

Objective: To compare body mass index (BMI) in young adults and to find an association between lifestyle behaviors and obesity. Study design: Cross-sectional study Place and Duration of Study: CMH Lahore Medical College, from first May 2011 to 31st July 2011. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted and a total of 404 medical students (123 males, 281 females) from 18 to 25 years of age participated in this study. Students in this study were undergraduate students. Data was collected using a structured self-administered questionnaire. All were questioned regarding gender, age, class and lifestyle behaviours. Overweight and obesity were estimated by measuring Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI ≥25.0 kg/m2 was taken as overweight and ≥30.0 kg/m2 as obese. Chisquare test of significance was used to see association between BMI and lifestyle behaviours with statistical significance taken as p<0.05. Results: Out of 404 students, 76 (18.8%) were underweight, 285 (70.5%) had normal weight, while the prevalence of overweight was found to be 8.2% and of obesity 2.4%. Overall 18.6% males and 7.4% females found to be overweight or obese. There was a statistical significance between obesity and gender (p = 0.001). Conclusion: Nearly 10.6% participants were overweight or obese. There is an urgent need to educate medical students about optimum nutrition and physical exercise in order to promote healthy lifestyles.