Knowledge, practice and attitude regarding lifestyle modification and health behavior among medical students“

Background: Lifestyle is described as the living environments, activities, and practices that one chosen, and manifest it in daily life. Medical school is always a challenging period bringing unhealthy lifestyle patterns and undesired changes in student life. Scientific studies confirmed that there is a lot of burden of such unbalanced routine and unplanned changes that play an important role in the development of many aliments. Pakistan, being a developing country lies under burden of number of diseases which include obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Health experts stated in their study that adoption of western lifestyle in eastern countries reduced overall physical activity due to increased consumption of fast food, snacks sweets and soft drinks. It not only effect their physical health but mental health as well. 
Methods: A cross sectional study, curbed to the city Karachi, Pakistan, during a period of 2 months, between March 2019 and April 2019. The aim of the study is to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice of medical students, from various medical universities and departments, within Karachi, concerning their lifestyle adaptation and unhealthy behavior. Individuals from different medical universities and from the multiple departments i.e. MBBS, BDS, Pharm D. and DPT were enrolled. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS v.22.0. Percentages and frequencies were considered for categorical responses.
Results: A total of 350 students were included in this study. Out of these [231, 66%] experienced frequent tension type headache twice a month. Uponquestioning regarding its intensity, on a linear scale of 1-10, [93, 26.5%] ranked it mild (1-4), [108, 30.8%] found to have moderate level (5-7), [147, 42%] has severe (8-10) and [69, 19.7%] reported to had very extreme episode (>10) of headache. Sleeping is consider as a best stress reliever. When interrogated for reason majority show little water intake and skipped breakfast routine. Many (n=71) have been into compulsion habits. The diet of female students was healthier when compared.When asked foe hours of study/ day aprodigious response was obtain (p=0.021). Some degree of members in this study has limited screen exposure (p=0.178). Though, aconsiderableamount of populaces don’t do any part time job (p=0.497).
Conclusion: In order to combat the unhealthy lifestyles in medical students, it is recommended that awareness programs should be put in place to educate these students. It is essential to promoteeducate among medical students about healthy life style. Co-curricular activities should be a major part of medical course to diminish stress level, improve mental health and develop a mentally and emotionally stable doctor.