Nutritional Status and Dietary Pattern of Undergraduate Medical Students of Central India

This study explores dietary pattern adopted by the undergraduate medical students and variation in nutritional status among medicos. Objectives were to compare the nutritional status of localites and hostelite medical students and to study their dietary pattern. It was a cross sectional study carried out in 100 medical undergraduate students. 50 hostelite and 50 localite undergraduate medical students were interviewed from 1st May to 20 July 2014. Students were subjected to sociodemographic profile, dietary history by 24 hr recall method, history related to dietary practices and anthropometric measurements [body mass index (BMI), Waist hip ratio (WHR), Waist height ratio (WHtR)]. On comparison of nutritional status, malnutrition (underweight: 40%, overweight: 6%) was found to be common amongst hostelites. On analyzing the dietary pattern of undergraduates’ daily consumption of high fibre was more in localites (46%) than hostelites (6%) whereas the daily consumption of junk food (16%) and visit to hotels (12%) was more in hostelites. On anthropometric study waist circumference of localite females (14%) was more than that of hostelite girls (4%). Similarly WHR was more amongst localite females (12%) than that of hostelite females (4%). However, on applying student’s t test, no significant difference was found in mean values of BMI, WHR and WHtR (p value>0.05). Our study revealed that majority of the hostelites had high prevalence of malnutrition (both underweight and overweight). The reason for hostelites falling prey to malnutrition is mainly unhealthy dietary pattern comprising of high consumption of junk food, high frequency of visiting hotels and low fiber diet.