Anthropometric studies on medical students of Nepal and Sri Lanka: height and weight

Nutritional status of a population or an individual could be assessed by clinical, biochemical and anthropometric means. It is widely used in the monitoring of growth and assessment of the nutritional status of children and adults. Even though a large number of anthropometric studies is done in Nepal and Sri Lanka, on various projects related to the nutritional aspects, but only few have been done on anthropometry and due to lack of information on anthropometric data of Nepalese and Sri Lankan medical students, the present study was initiated at Nepal Medical college and Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. The aim of the study was to measure height and weight of medical students of Nepal Medical College and Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya. A total of 1228 (males 681 ; females 547) medical students participated in the study. The ratio of male to female was 1.24 : 1. The height was measured, to the nearest 0.1 cm without shoes, using a measuring tape affixed to the wall. The weight was recorded using weighing scale, with minimum clothes and without shoes to the nearest 0.1kg. Two tail unpaired t'test was performed to compare mean values. The percentile values were obtained using Microsoft excel for Windows 98. The age of the students varied from 18-26 years with a mean +/- SD of 20.77 +/- 1.17 and 20.90 +/- 1.10 in males and females respectively. The heights of the male and female medical students were 1.65 +/- 0.08 and 1.61 +/- 0.08 and the weight was 59.70 +/- 9.26 and 55.54 +/- 9.16 respectively. The percentile values obtained for height and weight were compared with National Centre for Health statistics (NCHS) standards. The 50th percentile value of male's height and weight corresponded to the 20th percentile and below the 20th percentile values respectively of the NCHS standard. The 50th percentile value of female's height and weight corresponded to less than 10th and 15th percentiles respectively. The height and weight of only 9 males and 8 females were above the 50th percentile value of NCHS standards. The study reveals that the Nepalese medical students and Sri Lankan medical students are underweight and shorter compared to western standards.