engleski

Weight in young students from rural area

Introduction An appropriate physical activity combined with a correct diet represents the key points to reach a healthy self perception. During the youth it is very important to monitor the students' actions and choices during their daily life to identify risky behaviors and unhealthy trends (1). A very useful parameter to follow is the weight of the people, (in particular during the youth) to educate adolescents having a correct diet, active life style and avoiding risky behaviors. Materials and methods During the 2011-12 school we studied 1, 250 high school students (M:F=712:538, mean age 16±1 yrs, range 15-19). All students were interviewed and weighed in order to calculate the BMI (2). All phases of the survey had been run by the same Physical Education Teacher with the consent of the parents. Every student answered to a question about the personal perception of his/her state of health: good, acceptable or not good. Results: Fortunately, most of the boys are normal weight (71%). The 2.5% of the ‘rural’ boys' are underweight (70% of these students are females), while the obesity trend is reversed. Indeed, the BMI points out that 220 obese subjects are males (over than 80%). Moreover, from the point of view of overweight subjects, males are more than female even if compared to the total sample, they are not so much (105/1250). The 75% of students consider themselves in good health: 60% of these are male. In addition to this, only 18 people consider themselves being in unhealthy state. Only 9 obese students (on a total of 220 overall) consider themselves being in an unhealthy state while about 20% of normal weight persons consider their health only "acceptable". Conclusion: Unhealthy risk behaviors are those that can have adverse effects on the overall well-being of youth. Indeed, overweight and obesity lead to a wide range of adverse metabolic effects. It is essential that parents, teachers and educators become aware that young male are more obese than female in rural area. In particular physical education teacher could help students to have a realistic perception of their body and the level of activity required.

body weight ; students ; rural area

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