Relationship between University Students' Health Care Practices and Their Classroom Performance.

Health is greatly influenced by diet and physical exercise. For students, good health is one of the contributing factors towards classroom performance including academic achievement. The present study was designed to explore the practices of health care among university students and its relationship with their classroom performance. A sample of 1000 students from 13 departments of the University of Sargodha was selected through stratified sampling technique and 726 respondents returned the questionnaire. A questionnaire was developed to inquire the diet pattern, physical exercise and classroom performance of students. The questionnaire was validated and revised through expert opinion including nutritionists. The research instrument was pilot tested as well and reliability was 0.81. Findings showed that majority of the university students were consuming unhealthy food in the form of junk food. Interestingly students from departments of medical and food sciences scored higher on a measure of junk food scale. It was also found that the students with "more health caring" were good in classroom performance. It was concluded that a major number of students had unhealthy patterns of diet and lacked physical activities. It is recommended to include not only information about health care in daily teaching as well as informal coaching by university teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]