Journal of Obesity & Weight Loss Therapy
Open Access

Abstract

Health professionals who adopt healthy lifestyles are more likely to promote healthy living practices in their community and with their patients. We aimed to evaluate health indicators of students, and staff of the Health Sciences Center of Kuwait University. We extracted data on health behavior profiles related to smoking, physical activity, stress and sleep and objective measures such as systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP), heart rate (HR), random blood sugar (RBS), Body mass index (BMI), and waistto-hip ratio (WHR). 206 participants (107 staff, 99 students) attended three academic-years. Pairwise analysis showed significant changes from unhealthy in 2014-15 to healthy in 2016-17 among all participants in WHR (4.4%, p=0.001), HR (27.3%, p=0.001), and stress (15.3%, p=0.020). Subgroup analyses reported similar changes among female and student participants. Male participants remained unhealthy in BMI (74.2%), SBP (81.2%), and WHR (72.7%). Amongst female participants, healthy to unhealthy changes were in sleep (83.5 %) and BMI (74.2%), while unhealthy to healthy changes were observed in HR (67.6%), Stress (18.8%), and DBP (82.0%). Three-year analysis showed significant improvements in WHR, HR and stress. Health indicators that were a concern for males were BMI and blood pressure while for females they were sleep and BMI. We shall continue to encourage participation in annual health assessments and take advantage of individualized health coaching, advice and follow-up. In this way, the baseline of student and staff health will be expanded and evaluated in terms of change over years. nowall@hsc.edu.kw

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