Introduction: Data on water and sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) intake
among young adults in Malaysia is sparse. This study aimed at measuring the
intake of plain water and SSB among undergraduate students in a Malaysian
university and examine its association with body mass index (BMI). Methods:
A total of 376 undergraduate students aged 18-30 years were recruited. A selfadministered questionnaire was used to determine the SSB consumption pattern.
The questionnaire consisted of five sections that included the background of the
participants, knowledge about SSB, SSB preferences, frequency and portion size.
Results: 23.9% of subjects in this study were overweight. Almost all of the subjects
took outside food (93.1%) and drink (74.2%). The highest daily consumption was
plain water (92.3%), with a majority drinking more than two cups at each intake.
Caffeinated drinks (coffee or tea) were the most popular SSB among the students
(18.4%). Most students (79.7%) did not consume SSB on a daily basis. A significant
association was found between the proportion of plain water consumption and BMI
(p
Introduction:Orang Asli (OA) in Malaysia is considered vulnerable to social, economic and legal abuse. The in-crease in prevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) among OA was reported due to their lifestyle changes. Our study aimed to determine the level of knowledge on NCDs among OA community and its’ association with demographic factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study by face-to-face interview was conducted among consented adult OA in Jelebu, Negeri Sembilan using a validated questionnaire. Their knowledge on risk factors, complica-tions and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases was asked. Respective thresholds and ranges for poor, moderate and good categories were set as 0-15, 15–21 and 21-28. Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis test was used to test the association between the demographic profile and knowledge score since the data was not normally distributed. Results: A total of 325 respondents with mean age 39.94 (±13.196) ranged from 18 to 83-year-old participated in this study. Majority were females (71.1%) with pri-mary education (39.1%) and mean household income of RM 615.47 (± 446.79). Their mean knowledge score was 12.82 (±9.671). Majority of them had poor knowledge (51.7%). The respondents with higher education background had significantly better knowledge score compared to lower education background (p