Lifestyle assessment and overweight among medical students at Centro Universitário Barão de Mauá

Abstract

Obesity is a chronic disease characterized by an abnormal or excessive accumulation of body fat that has its prevalence increased worldwide. In this sense, this article aims to assess the prevalence of overweight and lifestyle in university students of the Medical Course at Centro Universitário Barão de Mauá. Academics from the first, second and fourth semesters of medicine were evaluated in a total of 169 individuals, 124 women and 45 men. We used the body mass index (BMI) to classify individuals, after obtaining weight and height by self-report. We observed a prevalence of overweight of 17.6% and obesity of 2.4% among medical students. The perception of being at the ideal weight decreased from the 1st (53.6%) to the 2nd (46.7%) and 4th (36.8%) semesters. Of those who practiced exercise, 88% consisted of aerobic or aerobic combined with anaerobic training, with more than half of the students reporting having decreased physical activity after graduation. Regarding the perception of sleep time, 83.4% reported decreased sleep after graduation and, finally, 82 students (48.5%) reported drinking alcohol. We conclude that the academic universe can bring negative influences on the students' lifestyle, such as irregular eating habits, physical inactivity and inactivity, sleep deprivation and troubled routine, providing a risk of increasing the prevalence of overweight and obesity. Paradoxically, medical students, in spite of the knowledge acquired in the health area, also suffer the negative influence of these bad habits of life, with a growing interest on the subject in recent years.