The aim of this study is to show the validity of the neck circumference (NC) for measuring the nutritional status in students from the Physical Education and Sports Faculty. We also want to study the correlation of the neck circumference with other anthropometric parameters and to assess the nutritional behaviour in these students. We have studied 95 males and 53 females with a mean age of 21.96 years (21.96 ± 5.01 years, ranging from 19 to 47 years). All of them were healthy and from different socioeconomic statuses. We measured weight, height, obesity indices, neck and abdominal circumferences, indices of body fat distribution and indices of body fat. The data was divided according to age and gender. In our study lot, 16 students (10.81%) presented a neck circumference of over 39.5 cm and the majority was male. We have obtained a strong negative association between the NC values and the results of the nutritional questionnaire (p < 0.01). The nutritional behaviour was dominated by the intake of fast food, eating disorder and intake of carbohydrate-rich drinks (p < 0.01). Also, we found a strong positive association between neck circumference and abdominal circumference, body mass index (BMI), weight and resting metabolism (RM) (r1= 0.8467, r2= 0.7272, r3= 0.8434, r4= 0.8849). No association between the values of neck circumference and the students’ age (r = 0.1366) has been found. The same results (strong positive association) were obtained when correlating the values of the abdominal circumference with the BMI, weight and RM.
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