Use of body mass index (BMI) to determine cardiovascular risk factors of physical education teachers in Tamale Metropolis

Abstract

Body Mass Index (BMI) is sometimes used for defining Anthropometric in adults. The common interpretation is that it represents an index of an individual’s fatness characterized by height/weight in adults and for classifying them into groups. It is widely used as a risk factor for the prevalence of several health issues among adults. Body fatness has been an important psychosocial issue among humans for decades. Evidence indicates that there is a wide range of BMI over which mortality risk is modest among Physical Education Teachers in the Tamale metropolis and this is age-related. The data collected were analyzed using simple frequency counts, percentage spread, mean, mode, and the findings included the fact that most of the Physical Education Teachers in the Tamale Metropolis have low risk health factors. The results also show a mean score of 1.75554 for the entire height with 73.3482 score for weight and 23.5500 for BMI respectively. Seventeen (17) out of the 28 respondents have Normal Weight, and are therefore healthy, representing 60.71% of the total number of respondents. Eleven (11) out 28 of the respondents representing 39.28% are overweight therefore not Healthy as agreed by the American College of sports medicine classification (2010). Development of positive relationship towards regular exercises to reduce weight and stress in their classroom activities is
recommended.