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Prevalence and Associated Factors of Physical Activity among Medical Students from the Western Balkans

The student population includes young adults who need nutrition and regular physical activity (PA) for mental, cognitive, and physical development. It is estimated that, globally, only 25–40% of the university student population is involved in regular PA. To date, no research has been conducted in t...

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Autores principales: Grujičić, Maja, Ilić, Miloš, Novaković, Budimka, Vrkatić, Aleksandra, Lozanov-Crvenković, Zagorka
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9265687/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35805346
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137691
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author Grujičić, Maja
Ilić, Miloš
Novaković, Budimka
Vrkatić, Aleksandra
Lozanov-Crvenković, Zagorka
author_facet Grujičić, Maja
Ilić, Miloš
Novaković, Budimka
Vrkatić, Aleksandra
Lozanov-Crvenković, Zagorka
author_sort Grujičić, Maja
collection PubMed
description The student population includes young adults who need nutrition and regular physical activity (PA) for mental, cognitive, and physical development. It is estimated that, globally, only 25–40% of the university student population is involved in regular PA. To date, no research has been conducted in the Western Balkans to address the PA of medical students. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and factors influencing PA among medical students from the Western Balkans. A cross-sectional study included 2452 students from 14 medical faculties in five countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia). There were significantly more students who engaged than those who did not engage in some type of regular (daily) PA. Gender, overweight or obesity, and household income are significantly associated with students’ PA. Students who are more often involved in regular daily PA and have higher daily PA levels are more likely to be males whose household income is above average. In order to improve the health of the student population, the public health authorities need to continuously investigate the PA of students and introduce appropriate activities to increase their level of PA.
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spelling pubmed-92656872022-07-09 Prevalence and Associated Factors of Physical Activity among Medical Students from the Western Balkans Grujičić, Maja Ilić, Miloš Novaković, Budimka Vrkatić, Aleksandra Lozanov-Crvenković, Zagorka Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The student population includes young adults who need nutrition and regular physical activity (PA) for mental, cognitive, and physical development. It is estimated that, globally, only 25–40% of the university student population is involved in regular PA. To date, no research has been conducted in the Western Balkans to address the PA of medical students. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and factors influencing PA among medical students from the Western Balkans. A cross-sectional study included 2452 students from 14 medical faculties in five countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia). There were significantly more students who engaged than those who did not engage in some type of regular (daily) PA. Gender, overweight or obesity, and household income are significantly associated with students’ PA. Students who are more often involved in regular daily PA and have higher daily PA levels are more likely to be males whose household income is above average. In order to improve the health of the student population, the public health authorities need to continuously investigate the PA of students and introduce appropriate activities to increase their level of PA. MDPI 2022-06-23 /pmc/articles/PMC9265687/ /pubmed/35805346 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137691 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Grujičić, Maja
Ilić, Miloš
Novaković, Budimka
Vrkatić, Aleksandra
Lozanov-Crvenković, Zagorka
Prevalence and Associated Factors of Physical Activity among Medical Students from the Western Balkans
title Prevalence and Associated Factors of Physical Activity among Medical Students from the Western Balkans
title_full Prevalence and Associated Factors of Physical Activity among Medical Students from the Western Balkans
title_fullStr Prevalence and Associated Factors of Physical Activity among Medical Students from the Western Balkans
title_full_unstemmed Prevalence and Associated Factors of Physical Activity among Medical Students from the Western Balkans
title_short Prevalence and Associated Factors of Physical Activity among Medical Students from the Western Balkans
title_sort prevalence and associated factors of physical activity among medical students from the western balkans
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9265687/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35805346
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137691
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