BRICSCESS CONFERENCE 2024

Important Dates:

• 15 May 2023: Abstract submissions open
• 31 August: Final abstract submission deadline
• 30 September: Final abstract acceptance notification

Abstract guidelines

Abstracts:

Narrative:  Each abstract narrative should contain no more than 500 words, 12 point Times New Roman font, single-spaced, justified in the following structure:

• Abstract title: The title should be explicit (14 point Times New Roman font) and in capital letters
• Full name and professional affiliation of author(s), mailing address and e-mail of the presenting author (12 point Times New Roman font).
• Introduction
• Methods/Methodology
• Results & Discussion
• Conclusion
• Key words

The abstract should not contain line spaces, references, tables or unusual abbreviations.  The presenting author’s name is to be highlighted and formatted in bold. 

Example:

WAIST-TO-HEIGHT RATIO AS PREDICTOR OF BODY FAT PERECENTAGE IN RURAL AFRICAN CHILDREN

Van Gent MM¹, De Ridder JH²

1. Department of Human Movement Sciences, University of Fort Hare, Alice Campus, South Africa. 2. School of Human Movement Sciences, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, South Africa. mvangent@ufh.ac.za

Introduction: Obese children are at higher risk of experiencing a range of health-related illnesses, than the rest of the pediatric population and therefore it has become increasingly important to monitor children’s body composition status through the use of anthropometrical parameters. Although Body Mass Index (BMI) is the preferred method of assessing children’s body composition, it has been criticized in the past as a measure of heaviness and not necessarily adiposity. Percentage body fat (%BF) through the use of skinfolds requires specific skill, which not many health related workers possess. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a prediction equation by making use of the waist-to-height (WtHR) to estimate body fat percentage.

Method: Stratified random sampling was used to select the underprivileged rural schools (n=41), while random sampling was used to select 7 to 13 year old girls (n=649) and boys (n=684).  The children were classified in under fat, normal fat and over fat/ obese groups according to Lohnman (1987) sum of triceps and calf skinfolds. Pearson correlation and regression analyses were carried out with WtHR as dependent variable for estimation of %BF.  A   Dependent T-test was then done to compare the %BF estimation through the use of Lohnman (1987) equation and the results obtained by the regression model.

Results: WtHR different significantly between the adiposity groups (p<0.001) in the boys and girls. In both boys and girls the WtHR correlated significantly with sum of skinfolds (r=0.39;r=0.51), %BF (r=0.17; r=0.42) and BMI (r=0.36; r=0.53).  The %BF values estimated by the regression model (boys: %BF=-21.910 + 88.758 x WtHR; girls %BF=-33.994 + 131.746 x WtHR) didn’t differ from the BF% values from Lohnman (1987) for boys (p=1.00) or girls (p=0.99).

Conclusion: WtHR proved to be a valid method of predicting relative adiposity in rural 7-14 year old children.  The developed equation can assist health workers to tract overweight and obesity (related to adiposity) more accurately in a rural environment.  

Key words:  waist-to-height ratio; percentage body fat; children