Objective:
To study whether BMI as a single influencing factor has any impact on college
student academic performance.
Methods:
540 (214
females, 326
males)
university-level undergraduate
medical students from the region of
India and
Saudi Arabia were studied for one year. Their BMI was calculated and compared with academic aggregate marks.
Results:
The majority of the
students had normal BMI. On comparing grades of
underweight,
overweight, and obese
students with normal weight
students we found that there was no significant difference in their
academic performance (p=0.899).
Gender-wise comparison also showed an insignificant relationship between BMI and
academic performance (
females p=0.539,
males p=0.622).
Conclusion:
Weight did not show any influence on
academic performance when the BMI alone is compared with the
academic performance of the
students for a short duration (one year), irrespective of
gender (
male/
female).