Korean J Epidemiol.  1996 Jun;18(1):101-107.

Usefulness of Somatotype Drawing as a Instrument of Measuring Obesity Level in Korea

• Bae JM
• Ahn YO

Abstract

BACKGROUND: As modern epidemiologic studies began to identify obesity as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and cancer, measuring the degree of excess body fat is important on epidemiologic surveys. The evaluation of obesity level in epidemiologic surveys has been mostly done indirectly by measuring patient's height and weight. But, the anthropometry could not be done to respondents of recalling past anthropometric values or to proxy respondents. This study was attempted to elucidate usefulness of a somatotype drawing as a measuring instrument of obesity level in epidemiologic surveys in Korea. METHOD: The inclusion criteria of subjects were (1) members of the Seoul Cohort Study, who were recruited by self-administered structured questionnaire survey through mailing to the healthy men between the ages of 40 and 59 years through the program of a biennial health checkup offered by the Korean Medical Insurance Corporation (KMIC), and (2) volunteers for cancer screening program offered by KMIC. For assessing usefulness of the instrument, measurement of status/weight and self-administered questionnaire survey were done separately through the program of a biennial health checkup and of cancer screening.
RESULTS
The data were collected from 138 subjects, whose Body Mass Index (kg/M2) was 23.58+/-1.46 (mean+/-SD). When the validity was measured through correlation with BMI, Spearman's correlation coefficient (rs) was 0.72 (p<0.05), that remained statistically significant after adjusting age, education level, and monthly income and occupation. And, the grades of somatotypo drawing were grouped as 1-3, 4-6, 7-8 by ANOVA and Tukey test.
CONCLUSIONS
Instrument using somatotype drawing is applicable to screen degree of body fat in self-administered questionnaire surveys in Korea.

MeSH Terms

Adipose Tissue
Anthropometry
Body Mass Index
Cardiovascular Diseases
Cohort Studies
Surveys and Questionnaires
Early Detection of Cancer
Education
Epidemiologic Studies
Humans
Hypertension
Insurance
Korea*
Male
Obesity*
Occupations
Postal Service
Proxy
Risk Factors
Seoul
Somatotypes*
Volunteers