Prevalence of Optimal Lifestyle Behaviors in College Undergraduate Students

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality in the United States and remains a great public health challenge. Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors (e.g., unhealthy diet, sedentary behavior, cigarette smoking, and obesity) are associated with a greater risk of incident CVD and all-cause mortality. From the prevention strategy, maintaining a healthy lifestyle throughout a lifetime is a key to CVD prevention. Nonetheless, the prevalence of healthy lifestyle behaviors in US communities is low as 3 to 5%. Moreover, the prevalence of a healthy population among college students remains unknown. Objective: We investigated the prevalence of healthy lifestyle behaviors among college students. Methods: We recruited 747 undergraduate students from Arizona State University using a survey questionnaire. The survey questionnaire investigated demographic characteristics, body mass index, dietary habits, physical activity habits, and smoking habits. The chi-square test was used to investigate the frequency of ideal lifestyle behaviors in college students. Results: Prevalence of students who met all 4 ideal health behaviors (ideal cardiovascular health) is very low at 7.6%. Approximately 55.7% of students had only 2 or less ideal lifestyle behaviors (poor cardiovascular health). In addition, there were no statistical differences in combined ideal lifestyle behaviors across gender and different years of undergraduate studies. Conclusion: College students had a very low prevalence of healthy lifestyle behaviors. Increasing healthy low-risk students throughout college education is an important strategy to prevent chronic disease morbidity and mortality at individual and population level.