Association between BMI, waist circumference and prehypertension among adults

.. Objective: To know the association between different anthropometric parameters for overweight and obese individuals to prevalence of prehypertension. Study Design: Correlational study. Setting: Vicinity of Kharian and at Outpatient Department, CMH Kharian Cantt. Period: February 2019 and January 2020. Material & Methods: Correlational study carried out in the vicinity of Kharian by employing different anthropometric measurements in accordance with guidelines to look at how blood pressure figure behaves in overweight, obese and morbidly obese population and further is there a difference in overall outcome if we use waist circumference rather than BMI and its significance in targeting preventive strategies. Results: Our results show a staircase pattern of increase in blood pressure, initially lying in different phases of prehypertension among normal weight (BMI 23±1.65; waist circumference (WC): 86.45±8.78; Systolic BP:127±11.99; Diastolic BP:80.44 ±9.45), overweight (BMI 27.35 ±1.23; WC:100±5.32; Systolic BP:128.72 ±11.29; Diastolic BP:80.05 ±6.66) and obese individuals (BMI 31.97 ±1.45; WC:112.12±9.22; Systolic BP:138.06 ±21.61; Diastolic BP:87.56 ±9.78), while this trend shifted to full blown hypertension among morbidly obese individuals (BMI 39.88 ±4.30; WC:120.38±12.84; Systolic BP:145 ±17.64; Diastolic BP:89.23 ±10.95) Conclusion: We conclude that prehypertension is already prevalent among normal weight and overweight individuals, and intensive follow up and lifestyle intervention strategy should be employed earlier at this level and waist circumference is a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than BMI and should be routinely done in local primary health care set up to prevent the onset of complications associated with this silent killer.