Associations between physical activity, nutritional practices and health-related anthropometry in Flemish males: a 5-year follow-up study

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To examine the extent to which extent health-related anthropometric characteristics such as body mass index, waist ± hip ratio, waist girth, percentage of body fat and weight gain are associated with physical activity and nutritional habits in a prospective follow-up study. DESIGN: A 5-y prospective follow-up study. SUBJECTS: 132 healthy men from The Leuven Longitudinal Study on Lifestyle, Physical Fitness, and Health. MEASUREMENTS: The main outcome measures in this study were body mass index, waist ± hip ratio, waist girth, percentage of body fat and signi®cant weight gain at the ages of 35 and 40 y. An unhealthy body composition was de®ned as a body mass index above 26, a waist ± hip ratio above 0.95, a waist girth and body fat percentage above percentile 75 at the end of the 5-y follow-up period and a signi®cant weight gain of 5 kg or more between the two examination periods. Anthropometric characteristics were derived from clinical examination. Physical activity at the age of 35 and 40 and nutritional habits at the age of 40 were determined from questionnaires. RESULTS: Physical activity was the most important predictor for the waist ± hip ratio in this sample. In contrast, nutritional habits show a stronger relationship with body mass index. The absolute amount of energy intake is not as important as the dietary factors in predicting subjects with overweight or an unhealthy body composition. The index of occupational activities appears to be the most important physical activity variable. CONCLUSION: The relative contribution of physical activity and nutritional habits in health-related anthropometry varies with the characteristic considered. It is important to include all components of physical activity, and occupational activities in particular, in determining these relationships in a general population sample.

Physical activity in leisure‐time is not associated with 10‐year changes in waist circumference

“…The most likely interpretation of the results is thus that overall LTPA, walking and biking has no appreciable preventive effect on ΔWC and ΔWC BMI , whereas sports activity may have small preventive effects in our population. These findings are in accordance with previous observational studies on PA and waist gain, which mostly find no (Stookey et al, 2001; Fortier et al, 2002; Hughes et al, 2004; Sternfeld et al, 2004) or a small preventive effect of PA (Kahn et al, 1997; Delvaux et al, 1999; Koh‐Banerjee et al, 2003) dependent on the methodology used. The methodological constraints in the present study are also present in these other observational studies, but randomized weight reduction studies do also suggest no or a small effect of PA on WC loss (Kay & Fiatarone Singh, 2006; Janiszewski & Ross, 2007).…”

Leisure-time physical activity and regular walking or cycling to work are associated with adiposity and 5 y weight gain in middle-aged men: the PRIME Study

“…More generally, since body composition is known to change with age and BMI does not distinguish fat from fat-free mass, the use of DBMI may also explain the weaker results of the longitudinal analyses. 28,29 The strengths of our study were assessment of physical activity for the previous 12 months, a period that includes seasonal variations on physical activity choice 30 and adjusting for several confounding socio-demographic, lifestyle factors and occupational physical activity. The importance of adjusting for occupational activity, which represents the greater part of the daily physical activity expenditure, has been recently emphasised.…”

“…The importance of adjusting for occupational activity, which represents the greater part of the daily physical activity expenditure, has been recently emphasised. 29 Use of W, which is well related to central abdominal fat mass, 31 in addition to BMI, has also contributed to assess the relationship between physical activity and adiposity.…”

Dietary factors associated with obesity indicators and level of sports participation in Flemish adults: a cross-sectional study

“…However, for a number of populations, including the Flemish, information on this relationship is missing. Also, although the associations of abdominal obesity with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease [ 19 ] and mortality appear to be stronger than for general obesity, only few studies have published results describing the relationship between dietary intake and waist circumference in a cross-sectional [ 20 - 22 ] or prospective design [ 23 - 26 ]. Moreover, dietary intake was not always the main focus in these studies.…”