Physical Activity, Health, Nutritional, And Leisure Habits Of College Students Of Chihuahua, Mexico

Abstract

1120 PURPOSE: Health habits of Chihuahua college students have been explored through a questionnaire originally developed to assess active lifestyles among Spanish people. METHODS: A sample of 50 female and 47 male, college level, students of the University of Chihuahua was surveyed. RESULTS: Most frequently reported physical activities were aerobics (N = 55), swimming (N = 51), basketball (N = 46), jogging (N = 39), weightlifting (N = 34), and cycling (N = 33). These figures suggest that active students were engaged in several exercise modalities; only 6,2% of the surveyed students worked out on campus; 19% attended private fitness centers. The remaining 74.8% exercised at city public facilities. Evaluation of the relationship between interest in, and actual practice of, sports/physical activity, showed that 47,6% felt they did not exercise as much as they would like to; 28,9% were not physically active at all at the time of the study. Leisure activity patterns differed greatly between genders. Men watched more TV, whereas music listening and reading were more frequent among women. As far as nutritional habits was concerned, Out of 45 students who were active, 44 regularly consumed alcohol containing drinks, as opposed to only 28 of the 37 physically inactive. Meal patterns varied among activity groups. Sedentary students reported the highest frequencies of consumption of hot dinner, tea/coffee, pastries, and corn tortillas. Highly active students reported significantly lower figures on nearly all those categories. Only their consumption of corn tortillas was almost as high as that of the sedentary subjects. DISCUSSION and CONCLUSIONS: Our results strongly suggest that students who exercise regularly tend to display a healthier lifestyle than those less physically active. Lifestyles differences also seem to exist between genders among Chihuahua college students, as well as between Chihuahua and Spanish students. Chihuahua students would seem to consume less alcoholic beverages than their Spanish counterparts, according to studies previously conducted in the latter. Chihuahua male students' most frequently reported leisure activity was TV watching, whereas Spanish students' most frequently reported activity was to socialize with their relatives, in the realm of the extended family tradition. These differences strongly suggest a substantial degree of lifestyle differentiation betwwen european and latin american students, despite a common cultural heritage.