ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to assess the activity pattern, food intake, and prevalence of abdominal obesity among undergraduate students in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State. Questionnaires were distributed to 288 systematically selected undergraduates from the 12 colleges in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, which included information on sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics, physical activity pattern, food frequency pattern, 24-hour dietary recall and anthropometric measurements. Data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviations. T-test was used to compare differences in anthropometric measurements between males and females. Chi-square was used for categorical variables, while Pearson correlation was used to determine the relationship between dietary diversity, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio. The result showed that more females (57.6%) than males (42.4) participated in the study. Some (48.3%) of the students were between 16-20 years of age, a further (44.4% and 5.9%) were between 21-24 and 25-28 years of age respectively with (1.4%) between 28-32 years of age. In terms of physical activity, less than half (48.4%) of the male students had high physical activity pattern when compared with their female counterparts (35.5%). Less than half (47.6%) of the female undergraduates had low physical activity pattern compared to their male counterparts (36.9%). In assessing the students’ risk to abdominal obesity, the result shows that majority (92.7%) of the undergraduates were normal while few (7.3%) of them had substantially increased risk of abdominal obesity. More females (9.6%) than their male counterparts (4.1%) had substantially increased risk of abdominal obesity. The result of this study indicates that undergraduates should engage more in physical activities and improve their dietary habits to achieve a healthy lifestyle. Lecturers, school guidance counselors should put more effort in motivating students to change their dietary practices and adopt healthy food choices as part of their lifestyle changes.