Health indicators of the students at the university of Talca, Campus Lircay- Chile 2007-2009

Abstract

Background: Metabolic risk and cardiovascular diseases are potentially modifiable. Aim: To determine the cardiovascular risk level and metabolic diseases associated to: body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), relation between waist circumference /height (H/WC) and blood pressure (BP), in students at the University of Talca, campus Lircay. Subjects and methods: It was used a descriptive transversal method. The sample was 3001 students aged 18 to 26 years (55, 7% women). The anthropometric parameters were: weight, height, body mass index, waist circumference, waist circumference /height, blood pressure. Besides the age, genre and career were considered. Results: 26, 6% had a body mass index over 25 kg/m2 and 21, 6% had an abnormally high circumference. High blood pressure was found in 4, 9% and 47, 1% of the students had pre high blood pressure. Conclusions: There is a high risk for students to present, sooner or later different kinds of vascular and metabolic diseases.