Nutritional status and food choices among first year medical students

Purpose: To examine the food choices and estimate the prevalence of underweight, overweight and obesity among medical students from four Central Eastern European countries. Methods: We examined 1517 students from Poland, Belarus, Russia and Lithuania aged 20.9 +/- 1.97 years. Body weight, height, the thickness of 3 skinfolds and body-fat% were measuredand BMI was calculated. The consumption frequency of 39 food products was determined and the differences were estimated by Tukey's procedure. The food products connected with obesity risk were identified by multivariable logistic regression. Results: In 985 female students, underweight was observed more frequently than overweight and obesity, particularly in Belarusian women (16.9% vs 7.2%). In 532 male students, overweight and obesity were observed more frequently than underweight. Body-fat% and skinfold thicknesses were the highest in Russian men. The students ate sweets, light bread, butter and red meat too frequently and except for Belarusians, poultry meat, fish and whole grain dark bread too rarely. Conclusion: The nutritional program was implemented and the suggestion was addressed to the university governments to support the canteens with inexpensive, but well balanced, meals. Noodles, sweet drinks, butter, pork fat, cream, light bread and bread rolls should be limited in the students' dietary scheme.