Medical students’ physical activity as an indicator of their commitment to healthy lifestyle

Abstract

Physicians, who provide general medical services, should give the patients an advice on physical activity. The study was aimed to assess physical activity of medical students, as well as their awareness of this issue, and willingness to provide the public an advice on commitment to a healthy lifestyle in terms of physical activity. A total of 518 medical students were surveyed. The data obtained with the Steps and Screen Time mobile applications were used. Physical fitness was assessed using the standard anthropometric technique. Statisctical processing of the data obtained was performed with the Statistica 13 PL statistical software package. The study met the requirements of biomedical ethics and posed no risk to participants. No significant differences in the number of steps between males and females was observed. It was 9033±3297 steps in males and 7807±3570 steps in females. The evidence supporting the relationship between physical activity and average time spent on a smartphone per day was obtained: the correlation coefficient for the relationship between the number of steps per day and the screen time was -0.36 (moderate negative correlation). Correlation coefficients for the relationships between body mass index and physical activity (-0.35) and between body mass index and screen time (0.33, moderate positive correlation) were calculated. The data obtained allowed us to develop simple and feasible guidelines on improving physical activity in medical students, as well as to develop a tracker of positive habit of daily optimal physical activity for each student, and to discuss the results within the framework of the business game Physical Activity in Various Sectors of Population.