The Relationship Between Anthropometric Characteristics and Low Back Pain in Women

Purpose: low back pain (lbp) is one of the most common musculoskeletal problems in the world so that about 80% of people are affected by lbp at least once in a lifetime. therefore, knowing the risk factors for lbp is an important topic. obesity is also a major health problem that is dramatically rising. if there is a proven relationship between obesity and lbp, losing weight can be an effective advice to help treat effectively lbp. this study aimed to evaluate the association between lbp and body mass index (bmi), body fat percentage (bfp), waist to hip ratio (whr), and waist to height ratio (whtr). methods: in this cross-sectional study, 60 women aged 20 to 40 years were randomly recruited by convenience sampling method during 2016-2017. they were living in one of the dormitories of tehran, and were selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. of them, 30 persons suffered from lbp during the past year and 30 were healthy. therefore, the participants were divided into two groups: lbp and healthy. height, weight, waist circumference, hip circumference, and also the skin folds at triceps, quadriceps, and suprailiac were measured for all participants. statistical analyses were done using spss22. results: the mean bmi value, although, was higher in patients with lbp, but showed no statistically significant difference between the two groups (p=0.17). the mean values of whr (p=0.04), whtr (p=0.04), and bfp (p=0.03) in participants with lbp were significantly higher than those in the control group. conclusion: the present study confirmed the relationship between the whr, whtr, and also bfp with the incidence of lbp in women. the strongest relationship was found between lbp and bfp.