title: Multiple health risk behaviors in German first year university students.
abstract: Multiple health risk behaviors have been identified as a problem in young adults which includes university students. The goals of this study included assessing the prevalence of major health risk behaviors in a cohort of German first year university students, analyzing the clustering of these behaviors and assessing readiness to change across multiple behaviors. A total of 1262 students from the schools of law, teaching and medicine at a German university participated in a voluntary and anonymous survey in 2005. The study assessed indicators and readiness for change regarding fruit and vegetable consumption, exercise, smoking and binge drinking as well as sociodemographic variables. Confirming the hypotheses, prevalences for risk behaviors were high; over 95% ate less than five servings of fruits and vegetables, 60% did not exercise sufficiently, 31% were current smokers and 62% reported binge drinking. Only 2% had none, 10.5% had one, 34.5% had two, 34.8% had three, and 18.2% showed all four risk behaviors. Readiness for behavior change was very low across multiple risk behavior combinations, especially for reducing binge drinking and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. Medical students showed slightly more positive patterns than other students. The results indicate the need for addressing health behaviors in the student population of this university. If these findings can be replicated in other universities, programs that promote individual behavior change as well as changes in environmental conditions in the university environment are necessary to address this urgent problem.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA. kellers@hawaii.edu
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.forename: Jason E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Maddock
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hannöver
authors.forename: J René
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Thyrian
authors.forename: Heinz-Dieter
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Basler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000435:Alcoholic Intoxication / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D015995:Prevalence; D012309:Risk-Taking; D013340:Students, Premedical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014495:Universities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*