Abdominal Obesity Among Students of Hawler Medical University
Keywords:
obesity, college studentsAbstract
Background and objectives: Abdominal fat is associated with a greater risk of obesity-related morbidity than overall adiposity. Waist circumference has been shown to be the best simple measure of both intra-abdominal fat mass and total fat. The aim of this study was to measure the waist circumference of the medical college students as an indicator of the prevalence of overweight and obesity and to correlate it with the students’ ages and college grades.
Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried using sample of 500 students of Hawler Medical University in Erbil city during the period from 1st of May through to 31st of July 2008. The WHO stepwise approach had been followed for measuring the waist circumferences of the participants.
Results: Five hundred students were studied. The mean (± SD) age of the subjects was 21.39 ± 2.84 years ranging from 17 to 35 years. Regardless of gender, the prevalence of overweight was 16.1% and obesity was 5.1%. Prevalence of overweight (21.8%) and obesity (6.1%) among female students was higher than overweight (10.3%) and obesity (4.1%) among male students. Overweight (50%) and obesity (16.7%) were more common among female students in the age group of ≥ 26 than the other age groups and the other gender as well. There was significant correlation between prevalence of overweight and obesity with the students’ grades (P=0.027) and genders (P<0.001).
Conclusions: This study concluded that the prevalence of abdominal obesity is higher in female students than male students increasing with the age of the students. Healthy eating behaviors and adequate physical activity for prevention of obesity among college students had been recommended.
Metrics
References
WHO. A healthy nutrition lifestyle, World Health Organization fact sheet No. 311, September 2006. Available from: http://www.indiana. edu/~engs/quest/uk.html. [Accessed on 2-2-2008].
Uwaifo, G. Obesity. emedicine. [online]. May. 21. 2009. Available from: http://emedicine. medscape.com/article/ 123702- overview.
Deshmukh P, Maliye C, Gupta S, Bharambe M, Dongre A, Kaur S, et al. Does Waist-Hip Ratio Matter? – A Study in Rural India. Regional Health Forum 2005; 9(2).
WHO. Reducing risks, promoting healthy life – The World Health Report. Geneva: World Health Organization. 2002. Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/ news/releases/pr84/en/index.html.
Dalton M., Cameron A., Zimmet P., Shaw J., Jolley D., Dunstan D. et al. On behalf of the AusDiab Steering Committee. Waist circumference, waist–hip ratio and body mass index and their correlation with cardiovascular disease risk factors in Australian adults. JIM 2003; 254: 555–63.
Welborn T, Dhaliwal S, and Bennett S. Waist-hip ratio is the dominant risk factor predicting cardiovascular death in Australia. MJA 2003; 179: 580-5
Epi Info 6. Version 6.04d. Issued by WHO and CDC. January 2001.
Akpinar E, Bashan I, Bozdemir N, Saatci E. Which is the best anthropometric technique to identify obesity: body mass index, waist circumference or waist-hip ratio?. Coll Antropol. 2007 Jun;31(2):387-93. PMID: 17847914 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]. Available from; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17847914?ordinalpos=37&itool= EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum.
WHO. Guide to Physical Measurements (Step 2). 2003. Available from: http://www.who.int/chp/steps/Part3_Section4.pdf .
Janghorbani M, Amini M, Willett W, Mehdi M, Delavari A, Alikhani S et al. First nationwide survey of prevalence of overweight, underweight, and abdominal obesity in Iranian adults. Obesity (Silver Spring). PMID: 17629101 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]. 2007 Nov;15(11):2797-808. Available from; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/17629101?ordinalpos=14&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum .
Garside J. Spiritual Connection, Spiritual Discontent, and Health. CSJ. (2009). Available from: http://www.webclearinghouse.net/vo-jL. lume/9/GARSID E-SpiritualC.php .
Payne W, Hahn D, Lucas E. Understanding your Health. (9th ed.). China. McGraw-Hill. 2007.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Are all Australians gaining weight? Differentials in overweight and obesity among adults. Bulletin Issue 11. December 2003.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The copyright on any article published in Zanco J Med Sci is retained by the author(s) in agreement with the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
