title: Knowledge, attitude, and level of physical activity among medical undergraduate students in Delhi.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Physical inactivity has been implicated as a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. The healthy lifestyle of medical students could facilitate the formation of healthy physicians who is more likely to give effective preventive counseling to their patients. Therefore, this study was undertaken to assess the knowledge, attitude, and pattern of the physical activity among the medical students.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional study was conducted amongst 161 eligible sixth semester medical undergraduate students. A pretested questionnaire was used to collect the data. Anthropometric measurements were also taken. The data were fed and coded in Microsoft Excel 2007 and analyzed using SPSS 17.0 and Epi Info software of World Health Organization.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Knowledge regarding different types of exercise and anthropometric variables was fairly low among the study participants. Only 9.3% of the students were aware of the recommended level of the physical activity but nearly all (96.27%) were aware of the benefits of it. The attitude of the participants toward the physical activity was favorable, yet only one-third (32.3%) subjects adhered to recommended guidelines. Boys (39.8%) were found to be significantly more active than girls (20.6%) (P = 0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The knowledge and practices regarding the physical activity was found to be low amongst the medical students. There is a need to provide an enabling environment for promoting the physical activity amongst them so that can inculcate the same in their patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Tanu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Anand
authors.forename: Sneh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tanwar
authors.forename: Rajesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Gajendra Singh
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Meena
authors.forename: Gopal Krishna
authors.initials: GK
authors.lastname: Ingle
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires