A Cross Sectional Study to Evaluate the Fitness Pattern among the Young Fishermen of Coastal Orissa

Health related physical fitness of an individual is mainly dependent on lifestyle related factors such as daily physical activity levels. Thus a cross sectional study was carried out to predict the influence of such a physically demanding occupation, fishery, on physical fitness. 15 male young fishermen of Puri District, Orissa, India (mean age 22.2) and the 15 young college students (mean age 21.9) who served as 'controls', were recruited by simple random sampling. Some common physical parameters and fitness variables are measured, of which a significant difference (p<0.05) was observed in blood pressure, PFI, energy expenditure, body fat% and anaerobic power, whereas, BSA, BMI, resting heart rate, V.O2 max, upper arm, thigh and calf circumferences were found to be non-significant. From the present study it can be concluded that fishermen have more physical or cardiovascular fitness and muscle mass, but less fat percentage.