The Association between Body Mass Index and Physical Fitness of Normal Weight/Overweight/Obese University Students

Analysis of differences in Muscle Power for female university students majoring in sports according to BMI levels

Muscle Power (often expressed in terms of explosive strength or explosive force) is required in most sports activities that involve intense and rapid contractions. Purpose: Identifying the dif-ferences and their significance, between the muscle strength values for the female students of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports, according to their classification by BMI levels. Materi-al and method: 77 female students of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport from Galati were evaluated through 6 upper body muscle power tests (30s Plyometric Push-Ups, Shot put, Medicine ball chest throw, Overhead Medicine Ball Throw-forward, Overhead, Medicine Ball Throw-backward, Overhand ball throw) and 7 lower body muscle power tests (Speed Test 10m, Standing Long Jump Test, Vertical Jump Test, 3-Hop Test, 30s Continuous vertical jumps, 30s Lateral double leg hop test, The multiple 5 bounds test). The groups were divided according to BMI levels (underweight 11 cases, normal weight 53 cases and overweight 13 cases). The non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests were used to assess the differences be-tween groups. Results: Arithmetic average values indicate the superiority of underweight and normal-weight women for lower-body strength and overweight and normal-weight women for upper-body strength, especially for heavy objects throw variants. However, performance differ-ences (assessed by ranks) are in most cases insignificant (Z values correspond to thresholds P>0.05). The only exceptions with significant differences (P<0.05) are for Overhead Medicine Ball Throw-forward (with the superiority of the overweight over the underweight) and Shot put - track and field (with the superiority of the overweight over the underweight). Conclusion: The constant involvement of female students in curricular and sports physical activities mitigates the differences between the muscle power of the 3 BMI categories. However, the small numerical composition - for the underweight and overweight groups - does not allow the generalization of the results, as studies on larger samples are needed and have common concerns related to the specifics of the sports practiced.

Role of leptin/ILC2 axis in allergic rhinitis in obese children

OBJECTIVES

Since the leptin participates in the upregulation of type 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s). We investigated the role of the leptin/ILC2 axis in AR pathogenesis in Chinese paediatric patients with obesity.

METHODS

Seventy AR paediatric patients with or without obesity and 30 healthy obese subjects were enrolled. The levels of leptin, its receptor and ILC2 milieu were measured, and correlations between them and clinical symptom severity and between ILC2 milieu and leptin levels were assessed. Changes of ILC2 milieu in AR patients after leptin stimulation were also detected.

RESULTS

Levels of leptin, its receptor and ILC2 milieu levels were significantly higher in the disease than in the controls, and highest in the obese-AR group. The leptin/ILC2 axis and severity of clinical symptoms in obese patients with AR were significantly correlated, similarly to what was observed between leptin/leptin receptors and ILC2 milieu. Recombinant leptin could significantly increased the levels of ILC2 milieu in the obese-AR group.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest the unique function ofthe leptin/ILC2 axis in obese paediatric AR patients. The mechanism by which obesity promotes AR in paediatric patients may be related to the leptin/ILC2 axis.

The Relationship between Body Mass Index and Physical Fitness among Chinese University Students: Results of a Longitudinal Study

Over the past few decades, a gradual increase in sedentary lifestyles along with the increased consumption of a modern, hypercaloric diet has resulted in a substantial increase in the number of those classified as overweight or obese in China. The prevalence of overweight and obesity has become a key public health issue. However, it is important to be cautious when interpreting the literature as the majority of studies apply cross-sectional data to assess and subjectively compare the relationship between physical fitness and being overweight and obese. In the present study, longitudinal data were collected from 3066 students (enrolled in 2014) at a university in China at the beginning of each academic year throughout their four-year university program. The aim of this study was to analyze the various associations between BMI, explosive power, flexibility, and cardiorespiratory endurance, and a random-intercept panel model (RIPM) was separately employed on male and female participants to identify between- and within-person variations. In this way, the associations for between-person physical fitness and normal/overweight/obese weight ranges, and for within-person physical fitness and normal/overweight/obese weight ranges could be observed. The results of this study revealed that every physical fitness test chosen for evaluation (such as the standing long jump for explosive power or the distance run for cardiorespiratory endurance) was negatively related to the BMI results, irrespective of sex, with the notable exception of the flexibility results. In addition, this study showed that both males and females exhibited positively correlated results in both between-person BMI and flexibility as well as within-person BMI and flexibility. Furthermore, the relationships between and within persons of cardiorespiratory endurance, explosive power, and flexibility all showed positive correlations across both sexes. The dynamics between physical fitness and BMI identified in this study could prove useful to practitioners and researchers investigating such relationships in the future.