Introduction:

University students are a population involved in a large number of activities. Therefore, awareness of their physical activity levels makes it possible to identify health risk factors and develop a diagnosis leading to the creation of institutional intervention programs.

Objective:

Determine the physical activity levels of students from the Autonomous University Corporation of the Cauca Region.

Methods:

A descriptive cross-sectional correlational study was conducted of a sample of 1 029 university students, based on application of a characterization survey and the short International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Data were processed with the statistical software SPSS version 23.0. Use was made of measures of central tendency, dispersion and distribution, and Pearson's chi-squared test to determine the relationship between variables.

Results:

It was found that in 77.2% of the study population physical activity is moderate to low, and there is a relationship between the variables physical activity level and gender (p = 0.000).

Conclusion:

Physical activity is moderate in most university students, though evidence was also found of sedentary behavior, a situation leading to health risk factors, since not enough physical activity is performed to create cardiovascular protective factors.

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