Anthropometric Parameters of Armed Forces Personnel

The prevalence of obesity has increased globally in the last few decades. Anthropometry is an accepted method of measuring obesity. Charts of weight for height and age as well as Anthropometric indices like Body Mass Index (BMI) are commonly used to define normal, overweight and obese individuals. Weight for height charts currently in use in the Army belong to pre-independence era. It is widely believed that these have been obtained from life insurance tables made for British / American civilian population. The World Health Organization (WHO) encourages its member countries to develop their own reference anthropometric indices.

Anthropometric measurements were recorded for 902 healthy Armed Forces personnel in the age range of 28 to 52 years selected by stratified random sampling. These measurements were used to obtain mean values, standard deviations, medians and percentiles for various anthropometric parameters.

BMI for the study subjects ranged from 14.67 to 27.90 kg/m(2) with a mean of 20.52 Kg/m(2). No individual was categorized as obese using the current international cut-off of BMI >30 kg/m(2). With the exception of height, all other anthropometric parameters like weight, BMI, waist circumference, and waist-hip ratio were found to increase with increasing age. Correlation of BMI with waist circumference and BMI with Waist Hip Ratio in the study subjects was found to be statistically significant. The weight for height and age chart developed by this study shows an increase in weight in all age and height categories as compared to the weight for height chart currently in vogue in the Indian Army.

The weight for height and age chart calculated in our study, shows considerable variation when compared to weight for height and age chart currently being used in Indian Army. The average weight for majority of height and age categories was found to be higher than in the Indian Army chart. It is recommended that a large multi-centric study should be taken up to gather more evidence to replace the current chart.