Correlation of Abdominal Obesity Indices with Blood Pressure in Young Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: The youth of this era are the sufferings of overweight and obesity because of sedentary lifestyle, eating habits, altered pattern of behaviour and mental stress. Abdominal obesity is a predominant risk factor of cardiovascular disease. With this background, this study was proposed to correlate abdominal obesity with blood pressure (BP) in young adults. Materials and Methods: A total of 205 young male adults of 20-25 years were selected from various local educational institutions. Estimation for waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC) and BP recording was done. Waist-hip ratio (WHR) was calculated from WC and HC. Recording of BP was performed between 8 and 9 am after 5-10 min rest. On the basis of WC, participants were classified into two groups, i.e., WC <= 90 cm and WC >90 cm. On the basis of WHR, participants were classified into two groups, i.e., WHR <0.90 and WHR >= 0.90. Results: In the present study, we found that the participants those WC and WHR above the cut-off value shown significantly more BP (both systolic and diastolic) than normal. Likely, the pulse pressure was higher in participants WC and WHR above cut-off value but not significant. We found a positive correlation between WC and WHR with BP. Conclusion: This study suggested that WC and WHR have a positive correlation with BP and hence concluded that adults with abdominal obesity are at higher risk to develop CVD in their future life.