Background: University students in Iraq face rising obesity risk linked to physical inactivity, prolonged sedentary behavior, insufficient sleep, and academic stress. Longitudinal evidence examining the combined influence of these behaviors on weight status in Iraqi universities remains limited. Objective: This study examined six-month longitudinal associations of physical activity, sedentary behavior, sleep duration, and perceived stress with body mass index and percentage body fat among Iraqi university students. Methods: A prospective multi-behavioral study was conducted at six public universities in Iraq. Six hundred undergraduate students aged 18–25 years were followed monthly during one academic semester. Validated questionnaires and smartphone-based applications assessed health behaviors, while standardized procedures measured body mass index and body fat. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlations, regression models, and repeated-measures analysis. Results: Overweight and obesity prevalence reached 63.7%. Most students met minimum physical activity recommendations, yet sedentary time was high and sleep duration was suboptimal. Sleep duration showed a small inverse association with body mass index and body fat and was the only behavior differing significantly across body mass index categories. Males exhibited higher body mass index, whereas females had higher body fat percentage. Conclusions: Integrated context-sensitive health strategies addressing sleep habits, sedentary behavior, and academic lifestyle factors may support obesity prevention.
Abstract
The aim of the research is to identify the cognitive curiosity of students of religious schools in the al-Anbar Governorate. The sample consisted of (346) students from the secondary stage in religious schools affiliated with the Department of Religious Education and Islamic Studies. The sample included (232) males, (114) females, and (225) represented the intermediate stage, (121) represented the preparatory stage in religious schools. The researcher developed a scale of perceptual curiosity comprising (30) items with three alternatives (always applicable to me, rarely applicable to me, not applicable to me). The results showed that religious school students have a perceptive curiosity; there are no sta
... Show MoreThe study aimed to measure emotional purity, as well as to explore differences in it according to the variables of gender (male–female), academic level (first–fourth year), and field of specialization (scientific–humanities). The study adopted the descriptive-analytical method. The study instrument, a validated Emotional Purity Scale, was applied to a stratified random sample of 300 male and female students from the University of Baghdad. The results indicated that university students generally possess emotional purity. They also revealed significant differences in emotional purity attributed to gender in favor of females, to academic specialization in favor of humanities students, and to academic level in favor of fourth-year
... Show Morehis research aims to identify fear of missing out on opportunities among university students in terms of gender and specialization (scientific and humanities). To achieve this objective, the researchers adopted the fear of missing out on opportunities scale developed by Subhi Hamid and Issa Al-Daghistani(2023). The scale, in its final form, consisted of 10 items. The researchers confirmed the psychometric properties of the scale. Then, it was administered to 140 male and female students selected using stratified random sampling from four colleges at the University of Baghdad (College of Arts, College of Education, College of Engineering, and College of Science) during the 2024-2025 academic year
... Show MoreThe current research's problem includes the impact of cognitive reappraisal and reformulate on self-experience of emotional response and its negative feelings and the activity of cognitive reappraisal in changing response. The aim of this research is to detect the relation between adaptive response and cognitive reappraisal upon students of secondary school, and to find differences in gender and stage. The sample contained male and female student for the year(2022-2023) and consists of (480) students (240) male and (240) female in the karkh education/ 1 To achieve this aims researcher used descriptive method and to measure the two variables researcher built a scale for adaptive response according to theory of compound emotion (Barrett,20
... Show MoreObjective(s): The aim of the study was to identify the prevalence of overweight and obesity in adolescence and
to estimate the effect of socio- demographic and health behaviors that predicting obesity in adolescents.
Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive study was being carried out at three public Arabic secondary
schools in Erbil city from October 1
st 2010 to January 30th 2011. A systematic randomly sample size of 461 students
was selected.
Results: In this study, the age of (46.2%, 122) of males students were ranged between (17- 18.9) years old compared
to females students (74.1%, 146) their age ranged between (15 -16.9) years old. About (3.4%, 9) of males
adolescents having overweight while all female ado
The aim of the study was to identify the nutritional awareness of middle school students and its relation to some variables of the sample of the research according to the gender variable (male and female), the variable type of family and the variable achievement of the parents.
The descriptive approach was adopted and the sample of the study consisted of (795) male and female students who were selected by the random stratified method. The research tool was prepared based on the literature and previous studies. The food awareness measure in its final form was (25) after the data collection was processed using the appropriate statistical met
... Show MoreThe study aims to identify the level of modesty and self-assertiveness among Tikrit university’s students in regard with students’ gender and major (scientific, human studies), and to identify the correlation between modesty trait and self-assertiveness of students. To this end, the researcher has designed a scale to measure modesty that consisted of four-domains (decency, avoiding of unattractive, pang of conscience, and apprehension). Moreover, the researcher adopted a scale of self-assertiveness that designed by (shawki, 1998). The sample included (600) student on first-stage at the university of Tikrit. The results revealed that students have a high level of modesty and self-assertiveness; there is a correlation between modesty t
... Show MoreThe present study aims to develop and apply the unrealistic optimism scale among high school students. The researcher has designed a scale of (38) paragraphs to measure the unrealistic optimism. A sample of (200) male and female students were chosen randomly to collect the needed data. The study found that the unrealistic scale of optimism has good psychometric characteristics. The research sample has a high level of التفاؤل غير الواقعي لدى عينة البحث unrealistic optimism. There is a statistically significant difference between male and female in the unrealistic optimism in favor of the male students. Finally, there is a statistically significant difference between students in the fourth and sixth gra
... Show MoreThe research aims to identify the relationship between mathematical ability and academic resilience among secondary school students. The research sample consisted of (280) students of the fourth scientific grade in secondary and preparatory schools of the General Directorate of Education in Baghdad / Karkh 2. The researchers built - based on previous studies and literature - a test of mathematical ability and a measure of academic resilience. The researchers used the T-test and Pearson's correlation coefficient to compare the results. The results revealed that fourth-grade students possessed mathematical ability and academic resilience. The research proved the existence of a positive correlation between mathematical ability and academic
... Show Morestudy aimed to recognize The relationship between Intrinsic Motivation Academy and Time Management among University students and measure Intrinsic Motivation Academy And Time Management for sample and Balancing Degrees of Basic Research on the two scales According to the Variable genders and Specialization, The sample consisted (350) students by (230) female (120) male , and the sample responded scales of Intrinsic Motivation Academy for (Alwan & Attaat2009) and Time Management (Building tool), The Results of this study show that: There are statistically significant differences according to gender variable in Intrinsic Motivation Academy and Time Management in favor of the male, and there are statistica
... Show More