Relationship between eating disorder and body mass index in physiotherapy students

Introduction: The World Health Organization in the 1987, declared Eating Disorders as one of priority issues of the world’s population. There is a commonly held view that Eating Disorders are a lifestyle choice. Eating disorders actually serious often fatal illness that causes severe disturbances to a person’s eating behaviors.The prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased rapidly over the past decades throughout the world. This has raised serious public health concerns because of the association between overweight and obesity and increased risk of wide range of chronic disease.
Methodolgy: 300 students from the Faculty of Physiotherapy, Dr. MGR Educational and Research Institute university participated in this observational study. They were selected on the basis of Inclusion Criteria both sex, 18-25 years physiotherapy students, willing to participate, BMI-Under Weight(less than 18.5), Normal Weight (18.5-25.5), Over Weight (25.5-30.5), Obese (above 30.0) and Exclusion Criteria Students under the age of 17 and above 25, Non-willing students, students in medications. All the students were given an informed consent form and requested to sign. The aim, purpose and procedure of the study was explained to them in detail and all their doubts were cleared by the researcher. After obtaining the consent form and detailed explanation about the study, an assessment form with detailed demographic details was collected. The students were grouped into under weight, Normal weight, Obese and Overweight according to their BMI. The EAT questionnaire was given to them and the collected data was statistically analysed.
Result: This study showed that the eating habits of the Under weight and Normal weight people is similar and the eating habits of Over weight and Obese people is similar