Epidemiological Insights into Anthropometric Indices and Their Correlates among College Students through a...

India is facing a dual burden of malnutrition with high prevalence of underweight and increasing prevalence of overweight/obesity.

This study reports anthropometric findings (body mass index, waist circumference [WC], and waist-hip ratio [WHR]) from the screening of 3296 students admitted during 2018-2019.

Majority of the students were male (70%), with a mean age of 18.57 years. About 31% and 19% of students were underweight and overweight, respectively. Given sex-specific cutoffs for WC and WHR, about 5% and 21% of students were at substantially increased risk of metabolic complications. About 14.5% of normal and underweight students were also found to be at substantially increased risk of metabolic complications. Multivariate analysis found increasing age (odds ratio [OR] = 0.92; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.88-0.98) and being male (OR = 0.74; 95% CI: 0.62-0.88) to be protective factors against underweight. We did not find any statistically significant correlation for overweight, for WHR among males, and WC and WHR among females.

It has been noted that the college environment increases the risk of weight gain. Hence, it makes a case to periodically study changes in anthropometric measures through a longitudinal study, and accordingly develop life cycle-based interventions for prevention/management of undernutrition, obesity, and related complications.