Relationship between Body Mass Index and Blood Pressure Profile among Adolescents

Non communicable diseases (NCDs) and their associated risk factors have emerged as major public health challenges globally. It is well established that the co-existence of two or more risk factors is associated with increased risk of developing NCDs than would be expected on the basis of the sum of the separate effects. The World Health Organization (WHO) has already warned of increasing NCDs among adolescents as a major public health problem. The importance of this age group also lies in the fact that many serious diseases in adulthood have their roots in adolescence. With this context in the background, the present research was conducted to assess the relationship between body mass index and blood pressure profile. The sample of the study comprised 400 adolescents (16-18yrs) across the gender, residing in Urban Jammu district in J&K state of India and studying in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools. The research was undertaken with following objectives: • Prepare blood pressure profile of selected adolescents • Asses the body mass index of selected sample • Study interrelation between blood pressure profile and BMI among the sample adolescent group. To assess the BMI of sample adolescents anthropometric measurements (including height, weight), standardized anthropometric rod and was used. Electronic blood pressure apparatus (sphygmomanometer) was used to measure blood pressure. Analysis of data revealed that sample girls and boys were having mean height as 160cms and 172cms respectively, which was far less than National Centre for Health Statistics (NCHS, 2010). Mean BMI was 21.74 for girls and 21.08 for boys. More than half of the sample adolescents (52%) were pre- hypertensive. 47.25% of sample adolescents were normotensive and 7.5% of sample adolescents were in hypertensive stage I. Blood pressure readings were found to shift from normotensive to hypertensive with increase in body mass index in sample adolescents. The research has implications for inclusion of indigenous data in the already existing database and for planning health related policies and programmers for adolescents.