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Relationship of Body Mass Index to Body Composition and Somatotype of Infantry Personnel from the Ecuadorian Air Force

Abstract:

The purpose of this research was to compare the body mass index (BMI) to the body composition and somatotype of the military personnel from the 223 Infantry Division of the Ecuadorian Air Force. It was applied a quantitative approach to collect all the information related to the state of the art and the anthropometric measurements; as for the data gathering instruments, all the measures were stored on a Google Form and then processed using a Microsoft Excel worksheet to determine body composition in order to locate them in a somatocard using the methodology proposed by Heath and Carter (J. Carter, The Heath-Carter anthropometric somatotype. J.E.L. Carter, San Diego, 2002). In addition, it is a non-experimental research with a cross-sectional design since the samples were collected once. The objective of study was to determine the anthropometric variables which involved BMI versus the body composition which included values of fat, bone, residual, and muscle tissues, as well as the somatotype to establish the relationship among them. Based on the results, it was possible to determine that the BMI is not a decisive factor to identify the weight categories that can lead to health problems in the military personnel; however, the classification of categories obtained were low weight 0%, healthy weight 36%, overweight 38%, obese I 17%, obese II 2%, and obese III 7%, in relation to the body composition and somatotype with an average in the (1) fat tissue of 15.19 ± 3.26%, (2) muscle tissue of 45. 0 ± 3.8%, (3) lean body mass of 67.0 ± 25 kg, and mesomorph-endomorph somatotype (5-6-1); these values were confronted to set morphological standards required by Air Force Infantry personnel to fulfill their duties, minimize well-being risks, and monitor their health permanently through the use of practical applications available on mobile devices; furthermore, this research has proved that the Internet of Things (IoT) represents to be a useful tool not only for civilians but also in the military field.