Abstract

Malnutrition includes both over nutrition and under nutrition. Country like Indiaharbours burden
of both types. College students are highly vulnerable to malnutrition as they seem tobe nonchalant
about their dietary habits, physical activity and general health due to academic burdenand lack of
time. With increasing importance given to physical appearance one group of students areinto diet,
consumption of dietary pills and bulimia. On the other hand another set of students areaddictedto
junk food andsedentarylife and end up in overnutrition. Our study aim is a) To estimate the
prevalence of malnutrition among medical studentsb) To assessthefactorsassociated with
malnutrition amongmedical students.Acrosssectionalstudy was done among undergraduate
medical students. Asemi-structuredquestionnairewasselfadministeredamong200studentsandalsoanthropometricexaminationwasconducted
andBMI
wascalculatedwiththe quetlet’s equation(weightinkgdivided by height in m2 ) The dietary habits
and intensity and frequency of physical activity werequestioned.Thedatawasentered in an Excel
sheet and theresults weretabulated.According to the WHO BMI scale , 13 students were
underweight , 113 were healthy ,55 were overweight and 19 were obese . Obese and Overweight
students were found to be morelethargicand had worsedietaryhabits than
thehealthystudents.Obesity and overweight is quite common among medical students .
Awarenessabout the ill effects of malnutrition has to be provided and medical students should be
encouraged totake care of their health so that they can adapt to a healthy lifestyle and also
practice the education ofhealthpromotion amongtheirpatients in future.