Body mass index and body composition among rescue firefighters personnel in Selangor, Malaysia

Obesity is a major public health problem in general population and there is no exception for firefighters. This disorder is definitely a burden for firefighters as they needed to be physically fit in order to work in dangerous situation and extinguishing fires. The purposes of this study were to determine physical characteristics and body composition among Malaysian Firefighters (MF) and to explore their association. This cross-sectional study involved 330 rescue firefighters aged between 20-50 years old from nine different districts in Selangor conducted between August and November 2015. Anthropometric measurements included height, weight and waist circumference (WC). Body composition was measured using bioelectrical impedance. The mean height, weight, body mass index (BMI), WC and body fat percentage were 169.4±5.3 cm, 74.5±12.2 kg, 25.9±3.82 kg/m2, 90.7±48.3 cm and 25.8±6.2 % respectively. The results also showed that 0.6% of them were underweight, 41.5% were normal, 44.8% were overweight and 13% were obese. The percentage of 34.8% firefighters with WC values of more than 90 cm means that they were at greater risk to have cardiovascular and diabetes disease. Body composition analysis showed that 75.5% of the subjects have high body fat level, 19.7% subjects were in healthy range but only 4.8% were considered as lean subjects. BMI was highly correlated with weight (r=0.917, p