Body Mass Index And Its Association With Energy Intake And Expenditure Among University Students In Nairobi County

ABSTRACT

Overweight and obesity in all populations are now realised as worldwide epidemic health

problems. The aetiology of these conditions suggests a disruption in regulation of energy

at the population level, leading to a positive energy balance and excess adiposityamong

others.Overweight and obesity can be defined in terms of Body Mass Index (BMI), which

is the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters (kg/m2).The aim

of this study was, therefore, to measure the BMI and find out its association with physical

activity and energy intake among university students in Nairobi County, Kenya. The

target population comprised full-time students in selected public and private universities

in Nairobi County.The population data was divided into two strata: public universities

and private universities with a sample of 384 respondents obtained through stratified

random sampling. Data management and analyses were done using the Statistical

Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 17.0. BMI was categorised into

underweight, normal, overweight and obese. The association among energy intake and

expenditure and BMI was determined by Spearman’s rho and Pearson correlation

coefficients. The results were presented in tables and figures. The findings of this study

indicated that overweight and obesity status was 6.5% and 1.0% respectively. The

prevalence of overweight and obesity among public university students was 3.8% and

0.7% respectively compared to the private university students (2.7% and 0.3%

respectively). In the study, 91.2% of the males’ energy intake was less than the

recommended daily allowances (RDAs), and 8.8% had an energy intake above the RDAs

as compared to 93.4% of females who had energy intake below RDAs and 6.6% above

RDAs. Correlation analysis of the association between energy intake through dieting and

BMI score of the university students was significant (P