Comparative Assessment of Anthropometric, Metabolic, and Hormonal Characteristics in Underweight and Obese Young Men of Military Age

Abstract: Body weight is a well-known important indicator of health and risk of its disorders. It serves as one of the criteria for selecting young men for military service, which is largely associated with an increased level of physical and psychoemotional stress. In this regard there is a need for comparative studies of influence of the mechanisms of deficient and excessive body weight on the main regulatory systems and their effector links in young men of military age in comparison with the characteristics of their physical development. The purpose of this study was to compare the anthropometric, metabolic, and hormonal characteristics in underweight and obese young men of military age. The results of the study demonstrated that body weight changes in underweight (UW) and obese (Ob) young men relative to those with normal body weight (NBW) were associated mainly with the fat component and, to a lesser extent, with the muscle component. The highest blood level of testosterone was determined in UW young men; the lowest one corresponding, on average, to androgen deficiency, in those with obesity. Obese young men were diagnosed with metabolic syndrome manifested by abdominal obesity, dyslipidemia, and hypertension pathogenetically associated with hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance formed against its background. UW young men had prevalent ectomorphic components followed by meso- and endomorphy, whereas young men with NBW were more balanced in terms of the severity of the components with prevalence of mesomorphy followed by ecto- and endomorphy. Obese young men were predominantly characterized by endomorphy with less common meso- and ectomorphy. The study of anthropometric and hormonal-metabolic features in obese young men with different somatotypes showed that the endomorphic mesomorph somatotype parameters do not practically differ from those in UW and NBW young men. Obese young men with mesomorphic endomorph somatotype are commonly characterized by hypogonadism and insulin resistance that are associated with a risk for the development of chronic noninfectious diseases. © 2022, Pleiades Publishing, Inc.