Health-related lifestyles among Italian university students: A cross-sectional study.

Objectives: to investigate lifestyle, health-related behaviours, and nutritional knowledge among a sample of Italian university students and to identify social determinants of - and barriers to - healthier lifestyles.

Design: cross-sectional observational study.

Setting And Participants: students attending degree courses in health professions in a single university in Northern Italy (No. 1,495) were invited to participate in a structured web survey.

Main Outcome Measures: a comprehensive, validated questionnaire was used. Questions regarded nutritional knowledge and habits, smoking habit, physical activity, self-efficacy, and barriers to change. Anthropometric and sociodemographic information was collected. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize results. With single and multiple regression models, differences between subgroups and ranked predictors of students' attitudes towards healthy behaviours were analysed. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05.

Results: a total of 554 subjects completed the survey (participation rate: 42%; completion rate: 88%). Students showed good nutritional knowledge (73%), but some deficiencies related to low fruit/high sweets consumption, and a lack of basic macronutrients information. Only 30% of the students led a very active lifestyle and physical inactivity was greatest among overweight/obese students. Sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy diet were mainly associated with modifiable risk factors, e.g., being overweight and smoking.

Conclusions: this study provides evidence that health profession students have good knowledge, but their health-related lifestyle is a concern, especially given the role of prescribers that they will play. Structured programmes need to be developed to address the modifiable risk factors associated with detrimental behaviours manifest already during the university years.