Abstract
Iron deficiency anemia (IDA), a condition caused by inadequate iron stores, is a widespread health issue across all age groups. In university students, prevalence rates have been reported between 7.8% and 59.4%, highlighting substantial regional variation. Therefore, a crosssectional study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of iron deficiency anemia and its relationship with anthropometric measurements and dietary intake among 95 university students aged between 18 to 25 years old through convenient sampling. Anthropometric measurement and hemoglobin concentration of study participants were obtained. A selfadministered Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) was distributed physically to participants. The data analysis was conducted via Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), version 29.0 software. The prevalence of IDA among university students was 25.2%. There was no significant association, with a weak relationship found between body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage (BFP), with IDA (p>0.05). Moreover, no significant differences were found between the intake of non-heme iron, vitamin C, coffee, tea, as well as milk and milk products with IDA among students (p>0.05). However, significant differences were found between breakfast intake and heme-iron intake among students (p=0.002, p=0.020) on IDA respectively, with 2 times/week of median breakfast intake and 4.49 g/day of median hemeiron intake were more likely to suffer from IDA. Therefore, proper health education, health management, and administration are required to improve knowledge and awareness towards IDA, as well as increase healthy food availability to prevent further development of IDA effectively.