Bmi, Nutrition Habits And Physical Activity Levels In Freshmen And Senior Medical Students

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PURPOSE: An increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in young people has been widely reported in the literature. However, there is little information regarding obesity and its risk factors available for medical students, individuals whose habits and BMIs may affect the whole population through role modeling, and effects on counseling. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the prevalence of overweight and obesity, mean PA levels and related nutrition habits of freshman and senior Colombian medical students (MS) METHODS: A cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of Colombian MS from 24 schools from first (n=1322) and fifth (n=844) year was conducted during 2007. The survey used an electronic, web-based, culturally-adapted Spanish version of the "Healthy doc=healthy patient" survey (response rate= 74.6%). RESULTS: Obesity and overweight were significantly higher in fifth than in first year for men (4.3% vs 0.7%, p=0.01; and 25.1% vs 13.8%; p<0.01) and was significantly higher for obesity but not for overweight in women (2.0% vs 0.9%, p=0.1; and 9.1% vs 9.4%; p=0.9). Daily number of standardized servings of fast food (2.2 vs 2.0, p=0.2), carbohydrates (6.3 vs 5.8, p=0.06), soft drinks servings (0.8 vs 1.0, p=0.01) and fruit and vegetables (2.4 vs 2.4, p=0.8) was not meaningfully different between first and fifth year for men or women (1.7 vs 1.6, p=0.2; 4.1 vs 4.7, p<0.01; 0.5 vs 0.5, p=0.3; 2.7 vs 2.8, p=0.4). Number of portions was higher in men than in women, both in first (11.9 vs 9.1; p<0.01) and fifth year (11.4 vs 9.7; p<0.01). On the other hand, mean reported minutes of moderate or vigorous PA was significantly lower in fifth than in first year, both for men (183 vs 212, p<0.053; 108 vs 180, p<0.01) and women (144 vs 181, p=0.01; 59 vs 97, p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The study shows a significant higher prevalence of obesity in fifth year compared to first year MS. Although estimation of caloric intake did not show important differences, we found a significantly lower prevalence of moderate and vigorous PA for fifth year. To what extent these PA findings contribute to the higher obesity prevalence in last year MS need to be further evaluated with longitudinal studies.