Obesity prevalence in Brazilian firefighters and the association of central obesity with personal, occupational and cardiovascular risk factors: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate the obesity prevalence in a population of Brazilian firefighters and the association of central obesity (CO) with sociodemographic, occupational, life habits, fitness and health status variables. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTINGS: The data were collected during annual health inspections of firefighters from the Military Fire Service of the State of Espírito Santo, a state in Southeast Brazil. PARTICIPANTS: The study encompassed 1018 active military firefighters. After exclusion criteria, 892 male firefighters were analysed. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The collected data included: sociodemographic, occupational, lifestyle, fitness and health status variables. The associations between these factors and CO were calculated by adjusted OR through a hierarchical logistic regression model. RESULTS: Obesity estimation by body mass index indicated that 48.65% of the firefighters were overweight and 10.99% were obese. Concerning the body fat percentage, 26.23% of the participants were considered obese, while 18.61% of the firefighters were considered centrally obese or at risk using the waist circumference measure. After adjusted OR analysis, CO was more likely associated with the age range of 50 to 59 years old (OR 2.93; 95% CI 1.05 to 8.14), low self-reported physical activity (OR 1.95; 95% CI 1.14 to 3.34), low cardiorespiratory fitness (OR 5.15; 95% CI 3.22 to 8.23), hyperglycaemia (OR 1.70; 95% CI 1.07 to 2.72) and hypertriglyceridaemia fasting status (OR 3.12; 95% CI 1.75 to 5.55). CONCLUSIONS: Our study identified an overall high prevalence of overweight and obese individuals in the examined firefighter population. Age and cardiovascular risk factors were directly associated with CO among the firefighters. Cardiovascular risk factors should be routinely inspected within the Brazilian firefighters’ corporations in order to improve the health condition and wellness of these workers. These endeavours will improve the performance of the services provided to the population.