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.