Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity among Medical Students across Indonesia: A Literature Review

Aim: To make profiling of the prevalence of overweight and obesity among medical students in Indonesia through a literature search on previous scientific publications in the internet, then creating a map showing the spread of this silent epidemic among medical students.

Methodology: Simple internet based literature study cross sectionally search for previous published scientific articles available only on the internet, regarding overweight or obesity among medical students from different faculty of medicine in Indonesia. This study conducted from January to March 2023. Using famous search engine, Google™, we type several keywords regarding overweight and obesity among medical students in Indonesia.

Results and Discussion: Data from 29 published articles obtained electronically. The mean percentage of overweight and obese students is 35.5% and found in both public or private medical schools; where private schools have a slightly higher mean percentage of prevalence than the public ones. Even though there are 92 medical schools across Indonesia, it turns out that not all have such data uploaded to the internet. From the health communication perspective, this is also barriers that must be overcome.

Conclusion: Overweight and obesity among medical students of Indonesia is a real problem that must be managed properly in order to ensure that, these students stay healthy, can complete their education and then become doctors who serve the community.