Nutritional habits and obesity frequency of Gaziantep University's first and last year students in faculty related to health

This was a descriptive-cross sectional study aimed to determine nutritional habits and obesity prevalance of the first and last year students of Gaziantep University Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Dentistry and Faculty of Health Sciences and to determine the influential factors (n=1068). Response rate was 88.0%. Questionnaires were used as data collection tool. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Kruskal Wallis, Mann-Whitney U and Chi-square tests. p<0.05 has been accepted as statistically significant. Of the students, 61.5% were female and 38.5% were male. The Body Mass Index (BMI) mean was calculated as 21.93 ± 3,16 kg/m². It was determined that 12,2% of the participants were underweight 72,4% of the participants were normal weight, 15,4% of the participants were overweight or obese. Students who were male and who were studying at the medical school were found to be overweight or obese significantly higher. Approximately, half of the students were eating 2 meals a day or less, and the most skipped meals were breakfast. The consumption of milk and milk products, fruits and vegetables daily was found significantly higher among the first year students (p=0.024 and p=0.007 respectively), smoking and alcohol use was found significantly higher among the last year students (p=0.040 and p=0.026 respectively). Staying with family or relatives was found to have a positive effect on the food consumed. Of the students, 31,6% declerad that they had slimming diet at least once, and 33,9% were doing regular exersize. As a result, it was determined that obesity or overweight was common in university students. According to the results, it is important to ensure that adequate and balanced eating habits, and doing regular and adequate physical activity is a part of their daily lives to avoid obesity. Consiciousness of healthy lifestyle habits should be raised beginning from the first stage of education.