Abstract:
Malaysia has been listed as the first place in ASEAN countries that has a higher case of
overweight and obesity compared to the others. The overweight and obesity, and its risk
factors are very important as the obesity rates, especially in Malaysia, are getting to rise
nowadays, leading to a rising mortality rate. This research aims to assess the correlation
between knowledge, attitude, and practice towards overweight and obesity among pharmacy
and health sciences students in UniKL RCMP, Ipoh Perak, Malaysia. A total of 260 diploma
and degree students aged 18 to 25 years old participated in this survey using simple random
sampling. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) with
Pearson Correlation test to find the specific answers to our objectives. Majority (58.2%) were
in age group of 21-23. Regarding BMI, majority respondents showed normal BMI with
65.1% followed by 15.3% were overweight. The data collected shows a few significant
findings where the more than half of respondents have good knowledge and moderate
attitude but poor practice. From this study, most of the respondents have a good knowledge
and satisfactory attitude levels towards overweight and obesity but lack appropriate
practices. Future interventions should be integrated to educate the general population
regarding healthy lifestyle and eating behaviors to reduce overweight and obesity and its
complications.
