RESEARCH ARTICLE
A Cross-Sectional Study: Predicting Health Risks Among Female University Students
Qassim I. Muaidi1, Mohammad Ahsan1, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 13
First Page: 316
Last Page: 322
Publisher ID: TOPHJ-13-316
DOI: 10.2174/1874944502013010316
Article History:
Received Date: 25/12/2019Revision Received Date: 25/04/2020
Acceptance Date: 05/05/2020
Electronic publication date: 28/06/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Good health is very important in our lives and plays a significant role. Many health risks are associated with an unhealthy lifestyle. These risks are responsible for raising the risk of chronic heart diseases and other health complications. Females are not exempted from these issues.
Objective:
To identify the obesity-associated health risks of female students by using selected anthropometric measurements.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study was conducted including 300 females aged 20.82 ± 5.23 years from the college of applied medical sciences, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University. The anthropometric measurements (body mass index, percentage of body fat, visceral fat area, waist circumference, waist-hip ratio,and waist-height ratio) were taken with the help of an auto-calibrated bioelectric impedance device. The waist-height ratio was determined by dividing waist circumference with height. Cross tabulation was done to scrutinize the participant’s levels at risk and high risk. Linear regression analysis was done to see the relationship and prediction between selected anthropometric measurements.
Results:
The finding showed that BMI level was high in 55% of participants, Waist-height ratio over the average level was 46.67% and 21% of participants had a visceral fat area on risk. Linear regression analysis showed a strong association among body mass index, percentage of body fat, visceral fat area, waist circumference, waist-hip ratio,and waist-height ratio and statistically significant to each other at the 0.01 level.
Conclusion:
The selected anthropometric measurements can be used to identify health-related risks. Though, when any anthropometric measurement dichotomized as standard or high, BMI is the best measure to predict health risk.