[01] Azriq Bin Airul Faizili, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [02] Nur Hidayahtun Najihah Binti Yahaya, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [03] Nursyafikah Binti Jasman, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [04] Ooi Yee Jie, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [05] Thava Prasha Selvakumaran, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia.

Obesity is one of the major risk factors for a number of chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart diseases and cancer. Based on the World Health Organization (WHO), a person whose BMI is ≥ 30 (kg/m²) is considered obese. Medical students should have a positive attitude toward obese person in order to provide an effective and good quality of health care. The objective of this study is to assess the attitude towards obese people, the knowledge of obesity risks and also to study the factors influencing the attitude towards obese people among medical students in Melaka-Manipal Medical College, Malaysia (MMMC). A cross sectional study was conducted from June 2020 until July 2020 in MMMC. Purposive sampling was done to enroll participants and they were asked to respond to Attitude Towards Obese Persons (ATOP) scale, Belief About Obese Persons (BAOP) scale and Obesity Risk Knowledge (ORK) scale in Google Form. Analysis included frequency, percentages, means, standard deviation, maximum and minimum value, Chi-square test and correlation were calculated using Epi Info software version 7.2. Level of significance was set at p≤0.05. A total of 145 undergraduate medical students participated; study has shown statistically significant in comparison of attitude towards obese persons between Chinese and Malays students. The odds of having positive attitude were 13.0 times more likely in Chinese than Malays (95%CI 1.57-107.71; x2 8.214; p-value 0.004). In conclusion, the participants have a positive attitude towards obese persons. However, most of the students have a poor knowledge regarding obesity risk. Therefore, a lot of efforts need to be carried out to improve their attitude towards obese individuals and obesity risk knowledge.

Obesity, Attitude Towards Obese Persons, Medical Students

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