Body Fat and Visceral Fat Assessment by Bioelectrical Impedance as an Effective Health Checkup in a University Female Population

Introduction and Objectives: Excess body fat carries a higher risk of morbidity and mortality world wide. Various measures are used to detect excess body fat and the risk of obesity related co-morbidities including body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), skin fold thickness (SFT) and waist to hip ratio (WHR). Visceral fat accumulation is considered as an increased risk of metabolic syndrome and leads to major health hazards including cardiovascular diseases and diabetes mellitus. It will be beneficial to recognize health risks early and adapt to a healthy lifestyle by the university population. Even though waist circumference and waist to hip ratio are used to assess abdominal obesity, visceral fat assessment may interfere with as those measures evaluate both subcutaneous and visceral fat. CT scans, MRI are precise methods for the measurement of visceral fat. Due to the exposure to radiation and cost of CT and MRI, recently developed Bio Impedance Analysis(BIA) can use as an easy and accessible method of measuring visceral fat (VF) as well as body fat percentage (BF%).In the present study, we evaluate the clinical usefulness of Bio-impedance analysis in accordance with commonly practiced body fat indicators to create the awareness about the recently developed Bio-Impedance Analysis method. Methods: A total of 450, 3rdyear female undergraduate students were selected randomly to represent allthe faculties in the University of Peradeniya as the subject for this study. Body fat percentage and visceral fat were assessed by using BIA and was compared with other indicators of obesity such as skin fold thickness, body mass index, waist circumference and waist to hip ratio. Pearsons’ correlation coefficient (r) was calculated to see the relationship between body fat percentage and visceral fat by BIA with other body fat indicators. One-way ANOVA test and Tukey post hoc testused to identify the significance of body fat percentage level and visceral fat by BIA with BMI and waist circumference using SPSS 20 software.

Results: Statistically significant strong positive correlations for body fat percentage and visceral fat (p<0.001) were observed with BMI (r =0.918, 0.940), waist circumference (r=0.814, 0.822) and skin fold thickness measurement (r=0.693, 0.642) respectively. There is a statistically significant difference between the mean BMI (p<0.001)and mean WC values (p<0.001) for both BF% and visceral fat measured by BIA, indicating that significantly increased Body fat percentage and visceral fat levels for larger waist circumference and obese persons.

Conclusion: BIA is useful to measure body fat percentage and visceral fat easily in an educated population such as in a university, as a health checkup and in epidemiological studies as well.

Keywords: Obesity, visceral fat, Body fat percentage, Bio impedance analysis, university population.