The prevalence of obesity and overweight in Isfahan Veterans

Several studies showed the relationship of obesity and overweight with body mass index. According to these studies, because of severe complications of obesity and overweight we wanted to indicate the outbreak rate of obesity and overweight in the certain group of veterans. This study was cross-sectional in design. The numbers of subjects was 106 individuals in Isfahan city. Anthropometric data and medical history were collected and handled with SPSS 10 statistical software. The mean and standard deviation of anthropometric indices were as follow: height, 168.39 ± 8.04 cm, weight, 78.75 ± 13.44 kg, body mass index, 27.98 ± 4.68 Kg/m2, mid-arm circumference, 33.19 ± 4.12 cm, calf circumference, 31.96 ± 7.38 cm, mid-arm muscle circumference, 27.34 ± 11.02 cm, biceps skinfold, 12.10 ± 5.47 mm, triceps skinfold, 16.35 ± 6.08 mm, scapular skinfold, 30.17 ± 8.10 mm, suprailiac skinfold, 32.62 ± 7.33 mm, total fat, 89.13 ± 24.16 mm. According to the findings, more than half of the study population were obese and overweight, however spinal cord injured patients with the same body mass index had excessive fat mass compared to other veterans. The main reason is sedentary life style but, additional investigations with larger samples size are encouraged.