THE NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF FINAL YEAR MEDICAL STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND PHARMACY AND SOME FACTORS RELATED

Abstract

Current medical students are fully equipped with knowledge about nutrition and health, but it is unlikely that students can practice well. With the goal of assessing nutritional status and a number of related factors, we conducted a survey of 512 final year students at Thai Nguyen University of Medicine and Pharmacy by weighing, measuring height, collecting data using a prepared questions and through direct interviews. The results showed that: 21.8% of students had a lack of school energy, the proportion of overweight and obesity accounted for 4.4% and 1.4%. As a result , the rate of chronic energy deficiency among students of Thai Nguyen University of Medicine and Pharmacy is still high according to the threshold for assessing the prevalence of chronic energy deficiency in the community according to the World Health Organization. This result proves that it is necessary to conduct monitoring on the changes in nutritional status and health of students, from which to have orientations for counseling as well as to plan nutrition education communication for students.