Zeljko Spalevic; Veselin Veljovic; Dusko Bjelica & Bojan Masanovic

The Police force personnel cover an exceptionally wide range of different activities, so it is logical that this heterochronic group has different abilities and characteristics, including daily needs, while changes in body composition and decrease in physical abilities represent a modern issue that has not bypassed this population either. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the indicators of the body composition of the Police force personnel, as well as possible differences that might occur in relation to different specialized police units. The subjects of this Cross Sectional study included 115 active-duty male members of the Police force (31.54 ± 10.5 year-old), divided into four groups, belonging to different specialized units. The sample of variables included five anthropometric measures (body height, body weight, abdominal skinfold, pectoral skinfold and front thigh skinfold) by which two body composition indicators - body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage (FAT %) were calculated. The variables were analysed by using the one-way ANOVA and LSD Post Hoc test. It has been determined that there are differences in body composition indicators between the members of different specialized units of the Police force, while overweight was noted among the members of the two subpopulations. This fact indicates that members of certain specialized units of the Montenegrin Police force have adverse nutritional status and the situation may be described as alarming, which may lead to decrease in their physical fitness and effectiveness in service.

KEY WORDS: Anthropometry; Nutrition; Physical fitness; Police force; Montenegro.

SPALEVIC, Z.; VELJOVIC, V.; BJELICA, D. & MASANOVIC, B. Body mass index and measures of body fat for defining obesity and underweight: A cross-sectional study of various specialties in Montenegrin police force. Int. J. Morphol., 39(6):1677-1682, 2021.