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

OBJECTIVE: To examine the extent to which extent health-related anthropomet ric characteristics such as body mass index, waist-hip ratio, waist girth, percentage of body fat and weight gain are associated with physical activit y 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 significant weigh t gain at the ages of 35 and 40 y. An unhealthy body composition was define d as a body mass index above 26, a waist-hip ratio above 0.95, a waist girt h and body fat percentage above percentile 75 at the end of the 5-y follow- up period and a significant weight gain of 5 kg or more between the two exa mination periods. Anthropometric characteristics were derived from clinical examination. Physical activity at the age of 35 and 40 and nutritional hab its at the age of 40 were determined from questionnaires. RESULTS: Physical activity was the most important predictor for the waist-h ip ratio in this sample. In contrast, nutritional habits show a stronger re lationship with body mass index. The absolute amount of energy intake is no t as important as the dietary factors in predicting subjects with overweigh t or an unhealthy body composition. The index of occupational activities ap pears 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 consi dered. It is important to include all components of physical activity, and occupational activities in particular, in determining these relationships i n a general population sample.