Assessment of Nutritional Status among Male and Female Undergraduate Students of Saveetha Dental College

A rational way of nourishment, combined with adequate physical activity, are the basic components of maintaining proper body condition. The aim of the study was to evaluate nutritional status among male and female undergraduate students of Saveetha dental college. A cross sectional survey of different questions, dietary patterns was conducted with a sample of 184 students (I, II, III, IV, and V students). Survey was conducted via google form through random sampling to identify undernutrition in the sample. Questionnaires were based on dietary health patterns and nutritional status in day to day life. The sample size for this study is about 184 participants and at the end of the survey, all the data were collected and analysed by using IBM SPSS software. The results obtained was the majority of the students are at normal weight and the scores met optimal levels. This suggests good quality and quantity of diet. Original Research Article Raj et al.; JPRI, 33(60B): 2939-2946, 2021; Article no.JPRI.78822 2940


INTRODUCTION
The major determinants of health and non communicable diseases are nutritional status and diet [1]. One of the importance of public health is nutritional status. This attracted the attention of economists and other social activists [2,3,4].
Students entering university environments have new social relations and behaviours -eating habits, physical activitysmoking, alcohol consumption etc [5]. This interferes in social, physical and biological problems leading to health problems. The transition to adolescence is an important period for change in behavioural patterns which has a risk factor to chronic disease [6].
It is very important to recognise and treat malnutrition because it's consequences include improper functioning of respiratory muscles and renal functions, the contractility of cardiac muscles gets reduced [7]. Nowadays, in developing countries one of the serious health problems and highly prevalent is undernutrition [8]. This occurs due to the intake of net nutrients is less than requirements [9]. It is easy to reach children through institutions such as schools and colleges. We have the responsibility for society to do our best to protect young people [10]. College is a critical period where lifelong lifestyle habits are developed, which have a lasting impact on development of chronic diseases [11,12,13].
Nutrition education has a profound impact on dietary habits and food choices in many college students [14,3]. Thus, schools and colleges represent an opportunity for students to learn new skills and lead healthy lifestyle practices. Students will have necessary knowledge and skills which are essential to make healthy lifestyle choices [15,12]. During college years, women face a great pressure to reduce their weight to achieve the 'thin ideal' body. Being thin makes women more attractive to their peers and more likely to gain peers' attention [16,17]. Students need to be healthy, physically active, and well nourished in order to succeed in their academic studies [16,18].
Different factors are associated with malnutrition among undergraduates of Saveetha Dental College. One set of factors refers to demographic details such as age, gender and other questionnaires [19].
Another set of factors consists of college, year of study etc,. [15]. This research conducted on the topic of assessment of nutritional status among male and female of Saveetha dental college has focused on undergraduate students to determine the underweight or malnutrition groups who are at risk of nutrient deficiencies [20]. These kinds of surveys and studies will be useful for guiding, planning and also implementing health interventions [21].

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A cross-sectional survey was conducted among the dental students with a sample size of 184. A self administered structured questionnaire was prepared based on Nutritional Status among male and female undergraduate students of Saveetha Dental Students and consisted of 11 questions. It was circulated to the students through an online platform (google form). The statistics were done using SPSS software, and the chi-square test was done. The pros of the survey is that the students of various Institutions were surveyed. Simple random sampling method was the sampling method used to minimise the sampling bias.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In our study we found that; 74.46% of the population are interested in healthy dietary patterns ( Fig. 1). 48.37% of the population prefer Non vegetarian (Fig. 2). 67.93% of the population consume milk and milk products (Fig. 3). 71.74% of the population take snacks while watching television (Fig. 4). 44.02% of the population consume bakery products (Fig. 5). 25% of females (green colour) don't skip their meals which are considered to be statistically not significant (Fig. 6). 24.46% of females (blue colour) have a duration of 1 hour between their dinner and sleep. This shows statistically not significant (Fig. 7).

DISCUSSION
This study examined the knowledge of assessing the nutritional status among male and female undergraduate students of Saveetha dental college. According to the survey, it is observed that students responded are of normal weight and health dietary patterns but there is a slight difference in gender. That is, females are slightly weak compared to males. Compared to other research, the number of males participated was 264 and females was 300 but in this research, females were 100 whereas males were 84. In similar findings by 66% consume milk and milk products whereas 34% don't consume. In this study, 67.93% responded yes and 32.07% responded no. In the research by [22,23] 8% of males and 9% of females met the recommended dietary intake of at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day. In this study, 45% consume fruits everyday whereas 8.15% consume fruits in rare cases. The research done by [24] reported that females were more interested in changing their dietary habits and levels of physical activity than male students. In

CONCLUSION
Developing gender-specific programmes for promoting healthy lifestyle behaviours among students is recommended. In brief, this study provided preliminary data on various nutritionrelated factors that can influence students' health. Results can be useful for health educators for designing health promotion and nutrition education programmes aimed at improving students' dietary and lifestyle behaviours. The data shown here is concluded by saying that both male and female students are of normal health. But a slight difference takes place in between them.