Impact of Balanced Caloric Diet and Physical Activity on Body Composition and Fat Distribution of Obese Egyptian Adolescent Girls

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of 6 months of balanced caloric moderately deficit diet program combined with individualized moderate Physical exercise on the body weight, body composition and fat distribution of adolescent girls. Subjects & methods: It was a longitudinal survey comprised 1244 adolescent girls, aged from 14 to 18 years. Their body weight and height were measured, and the BMI was calculated. Of the total sample, only one hundred and eleven girls (8.9%), with mean age was 15.82+ 0.75 years, were suffering from obesity based on their body mass index; which is greater than the 95 th percentile for age and gender based Egyptian Growth Reference Charts. These obese girls were undergoing nutritional intervention (specific dietary program, nutritional education and exercise) for 6 months. At the start of this program, the obese girls were assessed for their anthropometric measures: the body weight, body height (or stature), body mass index (BMI), waist and hip circumferences, waist/hip ratio, skin folds thickness at 5 sites and, according to BIA, their body composition. This assessment was repeated after 6 months. Only thirty eight girls completely finished the program till the end. Results: The current study showed that after following the dietary program and physical activity, there were highly significant reduction in waist circumference, the skin fold thickness at the 5 sites (triceps, biceps, sub scapular, suprailiac and abdominal), peripheral and central adiposity, and fat mass, and significant reduction in body weight, hip circumference and fat%. The change in BMI was not significant. On the other hand, there was a highly significant increase of the total body water and Basal metabolic rate after following the dietary program and physical activity. Conclusion: The nutritional intervention program was succeeded in 38 obese adolescent girls. These girls show highly significant reduction in body composition and body fat distribution.This revealed that the combined program of diet restriction and exercise is necessary. (Nayera El-morsi Hassan, Safaa T. Zaki, Sahar El-masry, Manal A. Mohsen, Eman Elashmawy. Impact of Balanced Caloric Diet and Physical activity on Body Composition and Fat Distribution of Obese Egyptian Adolescent Girls. Journal of American Science 2010;6(11):832-842). (ISSN: 1545-1003).