Deethu Sara Varghese ¹, S. Ashok ¹, D. Premraj ¹, Y. Venkata Ramana ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Work Physiology and Sports Nutrition, National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR), Hyderabad – 500 007, Telangana State, IN

Abstract

Assessment of body composition is vital in maintaining good health and managing various health problems. The proportion of the components of the body varies with various stages of life. Menopause and associated hormonal changes leads to alterations in body composition. Therefore accurate assessment of body composition in post menopausal women will help in prevention and management of various non-communicable diseases. Many methods are available to assess body composition; however the choice of the methods depends on factors like accuracy, accessibility and cost. The comparison of different methods helps in understanding the relative accuracy of the methods. The present study was conducted with an objective to compare the body composition estimated by Air Displacement Plethysmography (ADP) and skin-fold measurement (SKF) in post menopausal women. Twenty one apparently healthy post menopausal women aged 45-60 years were included in the study. Body composition was assessed using ADP (BodPod, LMI, USA) and SKF (Holtain Calipers, UK) methods to obtain per cent body fat and fat free mass (FFM) and agreement between the methods was assessed using paired t-test and Bland-Altman plots. It was found that there was no significant difference between the body fat per cent (p = 0.83), fat mass (p = 0.78) and fat free mass (p = 0.78) estimated by ADP and SKF. The biases for body fat per cent, fat mass and fat free mass were -0.2 %, -0.1 kg and 0.1 kg respectively. It can be concluded that there is a reasonable agreement between the methods in postmenopausal women.

Keywords

Post Menopausal Women, Body Composition, Body Fat, Skin-Fold, Air Displacement Plethysmography, BodPod, Method Comparison.

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