OBESITY AND PHYSICAL WORK CAPABILITY OF STUDENTS IN NOVI SAD

Abstract

The aims of the current research were to determine body mass index (BMI), percentage of body fat, maximum oxygen consumption and level of habitual physical activities, and differences in student population for both sexes regarding information about health, exercising and nutrition. The respondent sample was composed of 160 students (94 male and 66 female) age 22±1 years. The overall sample of respondants is stratified into two subsamples, 95 of them were students of physical education program that were informed through the study program about health, exercising and nutrition, and the second subsample was consisted of 65 students of other study programs that did not receive the mentioned information. Body height, body weight and percentage of body fat were established, body mas index was calculated, maximum oxygen consumption was estimated (by direct method) and the (weekly) level of habitual physical activities. The data were processed by procedures of descriptive statistics, central and dispersive parameters and distribution of frequencies and comparative statistics, t-test for independent samples, univariate analysis of variance and Chi-square test to analyze the significance of differences between subsamples of students regarding the study program and sex. Results show (complete sample), that almost 2/3 of male students are not physically active, and female students have significantly better indicators of body composition than their colleagues. Results of maximum oxygen consumption (complete sample), show that statistically highest average was obtained in the subsample of students from the physical education study program (49.54 ml/kg/min), and the lowest is identified in a group of female students of other study programs (36.92 ml/kg/min).