The effect of exercise on body composition and life quality of obese individuals

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of 12-week of exercise, applied to obese individuals, on body composition and life quality. Experimental group between the ages 23-66 (n=21; 10 male, 11 female) average of ages 44.52±9.88 years and control group (n=25; 12 male, 13 female) average of ages 43.68±10.93 years, totally 46 obese individuals participated in this study. Aerobic exercise program including 12-week of walking and running which is 4 days a week has been applied to the experimental group. Any exercise program hasn't been applied to the control group. In order to determine the body compositions, both groups have been measured with bioelectrical impedance analyzer (InBody230, InBody Co. Ltd., USA) a week before and a week later. In order to determine the life quality, test of SF-36 has been applied. For the analysis of data, the comparison of the binary groups, t-test has been applied after finding the differences between first test and the last test. For the comparison of the first test and the last test of each group, dependent t-test has been applied. Our findings show that, when the first and the last test results of the experimental group are analyzed, statistically in a positive way a significant variation in the whole body composition and SF-36 life quality scale parameters has been detected (p<0.05). According to the first and the last test results of control group, while any significant difference hasn't been detected in the body composition parameters (p>0.05), decline in a negative way has been determined in the SF-36 life quality scale results (p<0.05). When the first and last test results of experimental and control groups are compared, a significant variation in the whole body composition parameters and sub-dimensions of SF-36 life quality scale on behalf of experimental group has been detected (p<0.05). In conclusion, it can be said that 12- week of walking and running exercises affect body composition parameters and life quality of obese individuals positively. Key Words: Obesity, body composition, life quality, exercise, aerobics, training