College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES)

Permanent URI for this community

https://dissertations.mak.ac.ug/handle/20.500.12281/20

Browse

Browsing College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) by Subject "Academic demands"
  • Item
    Influence of academic demands on physical activity and dietary habits among Makerere University students
    (Makerere University, 2025) Kizza, Moses
    Physical inactivity and poor dietary habits remain a significant health challenge impacting numerous people across the globe. Physical inactivity is one of the risk factors contributing to morbidity and mortality, and contributes to various health problems together with poor dietary choices. Dietary habits, and physical activity are influenced by various factors especially among university students. However, research on the individual factors influencing dietary habits, and academic demands are limited. The main objective of this study was to investigate the association between academic demands and physical activity and dietary habits among Makerere University students. A cross-sectional research design was employed using a pre-tested, semi-structured, self-administered online questionnaire using google forms, and data was analyzed using IBM SPPS Statistics 20 software, and Microsoft excel. The findings reveal 83.9%of the respondents usually skip meals due academic demands, about 69.9% of the respondents agreed that academic demands reduce the time they allocate to physical activity, about 75.5%were not aware of the various physical activity options around campus due to academic demands. The study discovered that majority of the respondents (41.8%) rarely consume fruits and vegetables on a daily basis, and majority(59.1%)consume fast foods often times. The findings suggest that the institution should increase sensitization about the various physical activity options, and how to participate in them to increase awareness among students, introduction of nutrition education programs especially on the importance of dietary diversity including fruit and vegetable consumption, and reduced fast food consumption, and introduction of initiatives on how to balance academic demands with a proper healthy lifestyle.