The influence of body fat distribution patterns and body mass index on MENQOL in women living in an urban area

Abstract

Objectives To investigate the influence of patterns of body fat distribution and body mass index (BMI) on menopause-specific quality of life in peri- and postmenopausal women living in an urban area.

Methods A total of 214 peri- and postmenopausal women, mean age 55 years, with intact uterus and no history of hormonal treatment were recruited. Anthropometric measurements were conducted as standard techniques. The Menopause-specific Quality of Life (MENQOL) questionnaire was used to evaluate menopause-specific quality of life. The Mann–Whitney U test and Kruskal–Wallis test were used to compare MENQOL between body fat patterns or BMI.

Results According to the body fat distribution patterns, 53.3% were women of the android type and 46.7% were of the gynoid type. The android body pattern was associated with worsening of vasomotor and psychosocial domains (p < 0.05). However, overweight and obese women had slightly better scores in the sexual domain of the MENQOL.

Conclusions Peri- and postmenopausal women with the android body pattern have lower quality of life in the vasomotor and psychosocial domains while women with normal BMI have the slightly lower quality of life in the sexual domain. The maintenance of premenopausal body proportion might mitigate the menopause-specific quality of life.

KEYWORDS:

• Menopause
• quality of life
• fat distribution
• body mass index
• menopause-specific quality of life

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all staff members of the Health Surveillance Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Vajira Hospital for facilitating the process of subject recruitment.

Conflict of interest

All authors are faculty staff of a non-profit, university hospital. The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Source of funding

Nil.