Body Fat Percentage Factors in Public Health Student Universitas Negeri Gorontalo

Abstract

Body fat percentage is one of the body compositions, which is the total body fat of a person’s body weight. According to Gorontalo Provincial Health Office data, Gorontalo City had the highest rate of obesity in the province in 2013, with a rate of 24.2%. The problem of the study is what factors are related to the body fat percentage in Universitas Negeri Gorontalo students. The research objective was to identify the correlation between BMI, age, gender, nutritional intake, and body fat percentage at the research site. This study relied on an analytical observational research design Cross-Sectional, which involved 160 Public Health students of Universitas Negeri Gorontalo batch 2020. Meanwhile, the total samples of as many as 113 respondents using purposive sampling and data analysis employed Spearman Rank. The result revealed that there were two variables related to percent body fat with each value, including BMI (r = 0.90. p = 0.000 and nutritional intake (r = 0.52, p = 0.000) while the two variables unrelated to body fat percentage were age (r=-0.123, p=0.194) and gender (r=-0.079, p= 0.408). In conclusion, there is a correlation between BMI and Nutrient Intake with Body Fat Percentage, and vice versa between age and sex in Public Health students at Universitas Negeri Gorontalo. Further, it is advised that students control their weight, food intake, and the impact of being overweight on their disease risk.