Percent Body Fat and Body Mass Index in assessing Obesity: A crosssectional study among the college going young females of Lucknow.

Resumen

Background : Body Mass Index (BMI) has limited diagnostic performance due to its
inability to discriminate between Fat Mass(FM) and Fat Free mass(FFM).
Objectives: The study was conducted to study the correlation between BMI and Percent
Body Fat(PBF) among college going young females of (18-21 years) residing in the city of
Lucknow.
Materials and Methods : This was a cross-sectional study conducted in the city of
Lucknow. 10 colleges from five regions namely North, West, East, South and Central were
randomly chosen. BMI using standard techniques and PBF using skinfold measurements was
used. Data was collected, tabulated and analyzed using SPSS 16.0 Karl Pearson (2. tailed)
test was used to assess correlation.
Results : Mean age of participants was 19.41±1.17 years. Mean BMI (±SD) was 21.79
(±2.79) kg/m². whereas mean PBF was 30.66(±4.01)% and mean fat mass was 16.38 (±3.90).
BMI & FM AND BMI & PBF were positively correlated with the Correlation Coefficient of
0.754 and 0.338 respectively, it was statistically highly significant with a P value < 0.001.
Percent Body Fat is categorized as athletes with %fat of 14-20%, fitness 21-24%, acceptable
25-31% and obese>32% body fat. and the study concluded that maximum sample (49%)
came under the category of obese when their PBF was compared with standards despite being
under the normal BMI category
Conclusions :In this population we have found strong correlation between PBF and BMI but
even falling under a normal BMI the subjects have excess PBF.