Association between Somatotype Characteristics and Changes in Body Fat Percentage Following Exercise Intervention Among Overweight Adults

Somatotype has been linked to exercise and sports performance; the sub-groups of somatotype have been shown to have an effect on exercise performance indicators, suggesting an association between somatotype and response to exercise. The study investigated the relationship between somatotype characteristics and body composition and exercise response. The study used a quasi–experimental

Design: . The study recruited 42 overweight and obese participants at ACK Canon Hesbon Parish. Participants were grouped by somatotype and systematically placed in two distinct exercise weight loss programmes. The Heath-Carter

Method: assessed somatotype. Bioelectrical impedance analysis was used to assess body composition before and after intervention. The training interventions lasted a duration of 12 weeks. Means, median and standard deviations (SD) were used to summarise data. Two-way ANOVA was used to assess the relationship between somatotype, exercise intervention and BF% changes, the two-way ANOVA showed no significant main effect of somatotype (p = .557) or intervention type (p = .126) on BF% changes, and no significant interaction effect (p = .323), suggesting no evidence of somatotype effect on BF% changes. The study concluded that there is a direct relationship between overweight and obesity weight status with dominant endomorphic characteristics and dominant mesomorphic characteristics. Somatotype had no effect on BF% changes. There was no significant interaction relationship between somatotype and exercise intervention on BF% changes. The study recommended that the predictive potential of somatotype characteristics on exercise performance of general population should be further studied.