Abstract

The nutritional status of middle-aged overweight and control normal subjects were evaluated for the purpose of providing the background information of the degenerative disease control. A survey was conducted with 293 healthy subjects (121 males and 172 females) between the ages 40 - 64. The average BMI (body mass index) of male subjects was 24.5 +/- 2.75, and that of females was 23.5 +/- 2.87. The average values of WHR (waist-hip ratio) were 0.88 +/- 0.04 for males and 0.82 +/- 0.07 for females. The normal BMI group (BMI 18.5 - 22.9) comprised 28.9% of males and 47.1% of females. The percentage of overweight subjects (BMI 23 - 24.9) was 26.4% of males and 30.8% of females. The obese group (BMI > 25) was 44.6% of males and 22.1% of females, showing the greater rate of obese state among male subjects. The average energy intakes were 76.6 +/- 14.9% for males and 77.8 +/- 12.6% for females, protein intakes were 108.0 +/- 24.6% for males and 111.2 +/- 22.7% for females of the RDA levels. The average intakes of other nutrients were above the 75% of RDA levels except calcium. The average nutrient intakes of the three subgroups according to their BMI values were not different for both males and females. There were weak correlations between obesity and blood biochemical indices. There were positive correlations between BMI or WHR and hemoglobin, hematocrit, fasting glucose, total cholesterol, triglyceride, AST or ALT. There were negative correlations between BMI or WHR and HDLcholesterol. These results suggest that the obesity rate of middle-aged is an influential factor of chronic disease. The middle-aged subjects of this study with higher educational and socioeconomic background tend to have desirable nutrition knowledge and attitude, but the application of their knowledge or attitude was relatively poor.

• Keywords: BMI; nutritional status; obese; overweight; middle-aged