March 2019 Vol. 7 No.3

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Original Research Article

Prevalence of obesity and metabolic syndrome among female medical students in Makkah, Saudi Arabia

Adil Bahathiq

Physiology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Umm AL Qura University

E-mail: Drbahathiq@hotmail.com

Accepted March 12, 2019

Abstract

The Metabolic syndrome is categorised by a set of metabolic risk factors including atherogenic, abdominal obesity, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, insulin resistance with or without glucose intolerance. The main aim of the study was designed to determine the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in young adult Saudi women. Total of 409 Saudi medical female students participated in the current study. A cross-sectional study was conducted at Umm AL Qura University, female section to collect the data, anthropometric measurements, and blood pressure. The metabolic syndrome was determined according to the international criteria. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome in the target group was 8.8% while the prevalence of the obesity in the same group was 28.6% and 13.4% were under-weight. The study found that there was a relationship between marital status and the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and obesity (p<0.05). There was an association between the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and drinking soft-drinks (p<0.05). Moreover, there was a relationship between the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and eating cake donuts (p<0.05). There was a relationship between running and obesity (p<0.05), moreover, students who are using weightlifting were less obese (p<0.05). Also, there were a high relationship between obesity and drinking soft-drink from onside and eating cake donuts (p<0.05) from other hands. The results found in the current study confirmed the data found in the world atlas data that, Saudi Arabia in the top obese countries around the world. In this study, the causes of obesity and metabolic syndrome found to be due to married status, drinking soft drinks, and eating cake donuts. Moreover, some physical activities such as running and weightlifting may play a role in protected female students from obesity and metabolic syndrome.

Keywords: Prevalence, Risk factors, Metabolic syndrome, Obesity, Medical students