Assesment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Towards Overweight and Obesity Among Health Sciences Students Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

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.