Abstract

Background and Aim: Young adults including college students, frequently have an unhealthy lifestyle and diet. In the current study, we aimed to assess the dietary habits and physical activity, as well as the relationship with gender, economic status, and academic level of Saudi medical students at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Methods: The design was a cross-sectional survey study. Data was collected with a validated self-administered questionnaire. Results: The sample size realized as 259 participants, with just more than half of the sample (54%) male, and a mean age of 22±2.12 years. The majority (95.2%) of the male group reported consuming fast foods compared to 80.7% of the female group. For both genders, fast foods were mostly consumed during dinner. The prevalence of consuming fried foods and pastries were higher in the male and high-income groups compared to the female and low-income groups (64.1% and 66.7% vs. 50% and 45.7%, respectively, p-value<0.05). In terms of exercise, only 37.1% were exercising regularly. The majority (66.7%) of the healthy diet group, exercised regularly. Conclusions: Fast food consumption was highly prevalent in Saudi medical students, especially in males and high-income students and only a small proportion was physically active on a regular basis. The current study highlights the need for encouraging a healthy lifestyle, healthy dietary habits as well as a physically active daily routine, for medical students.

Keywords: Dietary habits · Saudi medical students · fast food · physical activity

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Peer review

Peer reviewed by 2 reviewers, who chose to remain anonymous.

Majmaah Journal of Health Sciences · eISSN 1658-8223 · Majmaah University · open access