Effect of BMI on Dual Task Performance in Young Females

Excessive body weight negatively affects balance. Dual Task requires a person to simultaneously perform a cognitive & motor task. It's been seen that overweight and obesity affect dual task performance in children. Also it has been documented that higher BMI is associated with poorer performance on tests of executive functioning in older females. The intent of this study was to find out the effect of BMI on Dual Task performance in Young Females.

To find out the effect of BMI on Dual Task performance in Young Females

40 young females participated, divided into four groups, i.e. Gp 1(normal BMI), Gp 2 (underweight), Gp 3 (overweight) & Gp 4 (obese). Participants had to perform Dual task in which they were made to stand on a Balance Trainer while performing a cognitive task in which they were instructed to orally generate exemplars of animals within a 60 second-time period (Verbal Fluency test). A Global Balance Score was obtained from the Balance task and a Verbal Fluency Test (cognitive task) score was obtained by calculating the total no. of animal's names produced.

ANOVA was used to compare the difference amongst the groups. No significant difference amongst the groups in the Dual Task performance. However the mean of Global balance scores of group 1, 2, 3 & 4 were 25.03, 27.34, 28.04 & 29.34 and the mean scores of Verbal Fluency Test of Group 1, 2, 3 & 4 were 11.9, 13.7, 11.1 & 9.8 i.e. when mean is considered, females who were overweight or obese performed poorer in dual task performance compared to females with normal BMI.

Statistically no significant difference between the groups in terms of Global Balance Score and Verbal Fluency Test i.e. BMI doesn't affect Dual task performance in young healthy females.