STUDY OF DIFFERENCES IN BMI AMONG SKYDIVERS ACCORDING TO AGE GROUP, DISCIPLINE, TYPE OF PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Body mass index (BMI) is mainly used to measure the level of overweight and obesity in the population and in the sports context and it effectively contributes to the prevention of injury.. The objectives were: i) to ascertain the BMI, weight, body fat percentage and height of a group of skydivers, classified in reference to their BMI; ii) to verify if there exist statistically significant differences in BMI according to the variables; iii) to study the interactions between the different independent variables. Twenty-seven athletes participated in the study (24 men and 3 women), aged between 19 and 62 years (M=42,1; DT=12,3), with different levels of experience, type of practice and modality. A descriptive analysis, the chi-squared test and a MANOVA. The results indicate that the skydivers presented mean values of IMC of 24,8 kg.m², weight of 77kg, body fat of 19.5% and height of 1.76m. The category of BMI that predominated was normal weight representing 59% of the total sample. Statistically significant differences were recorded in BMI in interaction with the variables of level of experience with modality, level of experience with type of practice, and modality with type of practice.