Introduction: Health professionals have shown not only similar but actually higher cardiometabolic risk factors than those of their own patients. Moreover, health sciences undergraduate students have shown similar trends in eating behaviors and habits of physical activity and diet than general population. Nutrition students should be more aware of the importance of having a healthy lifestyle and have shown to have more dietary risk behaviors.
Objective: To assess body composition, lifestyle and dietary risk behaviors in Nutrition students. Material and Methods Body composition, physical activity, diet, body image perception, and dietary risk behaviors were assessed in a convenience sample of Nutrition students at a private University.
Results: 90% of the students were within the normal BMI range; however, fat percentage of 50% of the students was above the cut-off point. The only criterion of an adequate diet that was fulfilled by 100% of the students was safety (i.e., innocuous); the least fulfilled criterion was macronutrient balance with only 40%. 78% of the sample met the WHO criteria of physical activity. 5% presented dietary risk behaviors and 40% show body dissatisfaction. Students exceed the DRI for protein, fat and fiber.
Conclusion: Although most of the students have a healthy BMI, 50% of the students have a high percentage of fat; this shows the impact of not having a proper diet. The percentage of fat and muscle mass is not consistent with the results of physical activity. The percentage of students that practice dietary risk behaviors was lower than the national average.