ABSTRACT
Introduction: Obesity is becoming one of the serious publichealth problems of modern world with rapidly changinglifestyles involving consumption of high calorie foods withdecreased physical activities. Spirometery is the initialscreening tool for pulmonary diseases. The aim of this studywas to evaluate the prevalence of deranged BMI, pulmonaryfunction tests and correlation between BMI and pulmonaryfunction test.Material and methods: This study was done on 300 femalesubjects in the age group of 18-25 years including 150 fromrural area and 150 from urban area of North Indian populations.Various anthropometric measurements (height, weight) weretaken. BMI was calculated. Parameters of pulmonary functiontests such as FVC, FEV1,FEV1/FVC,FEF25-75%,PEFR weremeasured by spirometer.Results: The mean value of BMI in rural and urban populationis (23.33±4.75) and (22.55±4.57) respectively. On comparingPulmonary function parameters of both the population, allthe parameters were significantly higher in urban populationexcept FEV1/FVC.Conclusion: Prevalence of deranged BMI was significantlyhigher in rural population. Negative correlation found betweenBMI with Pulmonary function tests in both population exceptFEV1 and FVC which showed positive correlation in urbanpopulation.