Patterns of physical activity and its correlation with gender, body mass index among medical students

Abstract

adequate levels of physical activity are essential to reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases. 1 Yet populaces have not achieved sufficient levels of activity.Physicians are ideally placed for health promotion. They consider lifestyle counselling and promotion of physical activity as part of their everyday work. [2][3][4] Hence medical students play an important role in promoting health ABSTRACT Background: The public health burden of a sedentary lifestyle has been recognized globally. Physical inactivity has been identified as the fourth leading risk factor in global mortality. Medical professionals have a significant role in counselling patients so as to reach the public health goals. The objectives were to evaluate patterns of physical activity comprising work, transport, domestic and leisure domains and its correlation with gender and body mass index (BMI) among medical students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 128 medical students. The international physical activity questionnaire (IPAQ) long form was used to measure total physical activity (PA) and metabolic equivalent (MET). BMI was calculated using height and weight. Data analyzed by SPSS version 20. Results: It was observed that the PA was low among medical students. As per MET score, 80.5%, 58.6%, 67.2% and 39% of students had a low PA pattern in domains of work, transport, domestic and leisure time respectively. The practice of domestic and leisure activity was significantly lower among female students compared to males with pvalues of <0.009 and 0.005. The association between PA score and its domains with BMI of students was found to be not significant. In female students a significant positive relationship was observed between domestic and BMI scores with r =0.3459, p<0.005. Conclusions: Medical students in this study were insufficiently physically active. The practice of activity was intensely lower in females compared to males. These results reflect us the crucial need for intervention on students' health promotion strategies.

Patterns of Physical Activity and its Association with Gender and Academic Year Among Undergraduate Medical Students

“…10 On the contrary, similar studies on PA of medical students have demonstrated better median energy expenditure scores ranging from 2347.8 to 4354.62 MET minutes/week. 19,20 It was distressing to know that more than half of the respondents in our study (63.2%) were in the low PA category. Similar levels of physical inactivity were observed among medical students in India (66.8% in Karnataka) and abroad (60.1% in Saudi Arabia).…”

“…22 In the present study, students spent more energy as part of transportation-related activities. However, other Asian studies reveal leisure time PA to be the chief contributor to total PA. 10,13,20 The jampacked curriculum of our medical students with less time for their recreational activities could be the possible reason for our divergent findings.…”

“…10 On the contrary, similar studies on PA of medical students have demonstrated better median energy expenditure scores ranging from 2347.8 to 4354.62 MET minutes/week. 19, 20…”

“…The results were in concordance with data obtained from other studies among female medical students. 9, 13, 19, 20 It is of great concern that women did not indulge in PA to such an extent of reaping its health-promoting benefits.…”

Physical activity and its relation with body composition among undergraduate medical students in Delhi: a cross sectional study

“…12 Padampriya et al using long version of IPAQ found higher percentage of medical students engaged in high physical activity as compared to our study while few other studies have reported higher percentage of students engaged in low category as compared to our study. [13][14][15] Khera et al found more students (58.2%) in high physical activity group, 27.9% in moderate group and 13.8% in low activity group. The difference could be because they used GPAQ scale while we used IPAQ scale and also their study included only hostlers and also their participants included medical, nursing, engineering and general college students while ours included only medical students.…”