Dietary and Health Practices among the Overweight and Obese Students

Abstract

Background and objective: The overlooking of nutritional values of dietary intake and exercise practices could cause an increased problem of the overweight and obesity. The aims of this research were to study the levels of knowledge, attitude, dietary habits of students, dietary habits in the students’ family and practices of health in overweight and obese subjects.

Methods: This survey research was conducted with 128 students at Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University who had overweight and obese conditions. Data were collected using a researcher-constructed questionnaire. The descriptive and inference statistics were used to analyze the data.

Results: Most subjects were female (60.9%). The 71.9% of the subjects regularly play computer games or the internet together with eating sweets, snacks or soft drinks with 55.5 percentages. The results revealed that most subjects were knowledgeable about overweight and obesity at low level (50.7%), had the attitude towards overweight and obesity at the moderate level (68.0%), had their eating habits at the moderate level (53.9%), and had their family eating habits at the moderate level (50.0%). In addition, their family eating habits were significantly related to the student’s health practices at the 0.05 level (r = 0.771; 95% CI = 0.470-1.073).

Conclusions: To prevent overweight and obesity effectively, parents should build a suitable culture lifestyle of family.