Relationship Between Body Mass Index and Physical Fitness among Medical Students of Gujarat, India

Introduction: Body Mass Index (BMI) is commonly used as a marker for adiposity. Physical fitness refers to a series of physical characteristics that are directly related to the ability of an individual to perform physical activity or exercise. Physical fitness tests measure the efficiency of muscular and cardiovascular systems. Aim: To assess the relationship between BMI and physical fitness in college students of a medical university at Gujarat, India. Materials and Methods: This was an observational study, conducted in Sumandeep Vidyapeeth, Gujarat for a duration of four months (September 2019 to January 2020) included 180 participants of which 105 females and 75 males aged 18-30 years. Height and weight were measured and physical fitness tests i.e. push-up test for upper body strength, sit-up test for abdominal strength, queens college step test for cardio respiratory endurance were performed. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of normality showed the data to be normally distributed. Association between variables was seen using Chi-square test and correlation was found using Pearson's coefficient. Results: Out of total 180 students, 26.1% people were underweight and 32.2% were of normal weight. The mean age of the participants was 19.7 +/- 1.99 years and mean BMI was 21.9 +/- 5.14 kg/m(2). There was no statistically significant association between BMI and abdominal strength (p-value=.0.64), BMI and upper body strength (p-value=0.75) and BMI and cardiorespiratory endurance (p-value=0.47). Males performed better than females in all the tests although it was statistically significant (p-value=0.001) only for the sit-up test and not for push-up test (p-value=0.16) and queens college step test (p-value=0.47). Conclusion: Performances on fitness tests varied with weight status. Higher BMI was generally associated with lower physical fitness. There is a great need to organize fitness programme in colleges on large scale to overcome the health problems in young age.