Assessment of Weight Loss Practices and Associated Factors among Postgraduate Students in the University of Ghana

Abstract

Introduction: Weight gain by students moving from one educational level to the other for the first time is of increasing public health concern. The perception of an individual's body weight aids in understanding and envisaging weight reduction practices among adults (Wang, Liang, & Chen, 2009). School/college environments are particularly at risk of this phenomenon because students may not have the time to pay particular attention to physical health as a result of heavy academic work-load. Davila et al. (2014) declared that unhealthy weight loss practices (e.g., fasting, vomiting, taking diet pills, and laxatives) are common among tertiary students worldwide. Objective: The main objective of the study was to examine weight loss practices and factors associated with such practices among post-graduate students in the University of Ghana, in order to inform the design of future interventions. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study involving a target sample size of 211 post-graduate students was carried out at the University of Ghana, in Accra. Multistage sampling technique was used to select post-graduate students in the various colleges at the University. Questionnaires were administered to these post-graduate students and data on factors associated with trying to lose weight and weight lost practices were collected. The analysis involved the use of chi-square tests to describe simple relationships and multivariable logistic regression for independent and dichotomous dependent variables to quantify associations. Results: A total of 211 post-graduate students were recruited and used for analysis. The overall prevalence of trying to lose weight in the previous year was 83.4% among post-graduate students. Almost 1 in 5 practiced unhealthy weight loss. Also, 36.0% of the participants perceive themselves as underweight, 22.8% of the participants who perceived themselves as normal, 26.0% of the participants perceive themselves as overweight, and 15.2% of the participants perceive themselves as obese. For body image distortion, 55.5% of the participants had no distortion in either direction. Factors that discriminated between these two outcomes were: Marital status (AOR = 15.6, 95% CI = 4.8, 50.7, P<0.05) influenced trying to lose weight; and sex (influenced weight loss practices). Factors identified to be associated with both trying to lose weight and weight loss practices were age, marital status, work status, and body image distortion of post-graduate student. The study found a strong agreement between body image distortion and trying to lose weight (AOR=0.926, 95% CI=0.658, 5.636, P-value<0.05) or weight lose practice (AOR=0.2, 95% CI=0.1, 0.5, P-value<0.05). Conclusion and Recommendation: The author concludes that unhealthy weight loss practices are prevalent among post-graduate students in University of Ghana. Factors such as age, marital status, work status, and body image distortion of post-graduate students may be associated with poor efforts at trying to lose weight and poor weight loss practices. The author therefore recommends that, the University authorities should organize educative programs on healthy weight loss practices for the benefit of both undergraduate and post-graduate students, the University and the Legon community. Also, the author concludes that low Socio-Economic Status (SES) has an association with poor weight loss practices; therefore, the author recommends programmes/interventions to tackle weight loss practices among students should be designed to address the special needs of students from low SES.