Strategies for maintaining the health of students with different body mass index

Background. The main focus in maintaining health is on harmonizing lifestyle. Students with different body weights may have differences in physical activity, nutrition, daily routine, and sleep quality. Identifying negative lifestyle trends will help eliminate them and improve health. Purpose. To identify risk factors of the lifestyle of students with different body mass indexes and formulate recommendations for improving health based on them. Materials and methods. A survey of students was conducted. A total of 1,458 people (457 boys and 1,001 girls, 555 first-year students, 374 second-year students and 529 third-year students). Data analysis was performed in an Excel pivot table. To assess the influence of the body mass index on the respondents' choice, contingency tables were used using the chi-square criterion of Pearson’s. Results. As studies have shown, the choice of health-improving factors by students (physical activity - 27%, giving up bad habits -20%, sleep - 18%, nutrition - 15%, daily routine - 12%, hardening - 9%) in a polyvariant question is not associated with the body mass index (p> 0.05). The body mass index in a monovariant question affects the students' fulfillment of the weekly physical activity norm, the time spent at the computer, the consumption of salt, sugar, fried food and water (p<0.05) and does not affect the presence of bad habits (p>0.05). Lifestyle risk factors that could be associated with changes in body weight were identified. For students with optimal body weight, this is the frequent use of salt. For obese students, this is the lack of achieving the standard volumes of physical activity per week and rehydration during the day, using long periods of being at the computer. For overweight students, this is the frequent use of fried and smoked foods in their diet. For students with body weight deficiency, this is skipping breakfast, eating one and two meals during the day, using a diet to reduce body weight. Conclusion. Health promotion strategies for students with different body weights may be associated with differentiated elimination of identified risk factors in lifestyle. A common task for all groups is the elimination of bad habits. EDN: KCZGDL