Investigating the Relationship between Physical Activity and Anthropometric Indicators with Sleep Quality in Military Students

Monitoring anthropometric indices and factors affecting performance is significant importance for the preparation and performance enhancement in military forces.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the level of physical activity, anthropometric measures, and sleep quality, as well as their relationship in military students.

The study was conducted on 120 students who were selected through convenience sampling method by recruitment. Measurements included anthropometric measures (height, weight, waist and neck circumference), physical activity (PA) level (International Physical Activity Questionnaire) and quality of sleep (Pittsburgh Questionnaire). Spearman's rank-order correlation test was used to check the correlation between variables (SPSS 20).

All subjects were moderately (49.17%) or vigorously active (50.83%). The body mass index (BMI) of most subjects (87.5%) was in the normal range and only 11.67 of them were overweight. The waist circumference results revealed that the WC of all the subjects was within the normal range. Moreover, 72.5% of subjects had good sleep quality and 27.5% had poor sleep quality. There was a significant inverse relationship between the PA level and the BMI (r=-0.430,P˂0.001), as well as between the PA level and sleep quality (r= -0.271, P=0.004). No significant relationship was found between other variables (P>0.05).

Most subjects were in good condition in terms of body composition, PA level, and sleep quality; moreover, PA level was an important indicator in predicting BMI. However, a weak relationship was observed between PA level and sleep quality. Since sleep is a significant factor in military performance, further studies are warranted to determine the factors affecting sleep quality.