The purpose of this paper it to investigate the differences in prevalence of obesity and body fat distribution on the variances of age. Height, weight, skinfold thickness and girth circumference on about 422 women residing in Cheju, Korea were surveyed. The results of analysis of the survey are as follows : 1) All the antropometric measurements except height were shown to increase with age. Weight is at its highest level between the age of 50-59. The measurement of skinfold thickness and girth circumference between the ages of 20-39 of the female subjects are significantly higher than the above 40's. However, there is no significant difference among the middle aged women. 2) Physical indices tend to increase according to age. Both BMI and RBW of women in their 50's are at their highest values, however, the index values of the women in their 60's decreased slightly (p<0.05). On the contrary, there is no significant difference in the percentage of body fat and total body fat content among the middle aged women surveyed. 3) According to this survey, 15.6% of the 422 subjects are assessed as being obese ; more specifically 4.4% of women in their 20's, 12.6% in 30's, 25.6% in 40's, 22.5% in 50's and 17.3% in 60's. 4) 39.4% among obese women proved to be upper body type women. Because the frequency of upper body type women became higher as the obese women aged, there is possibility that the pattern of fat distribution can change. 5) Weight is the most highly correlated with BMI(r=0.91), whereas weight as correlated with RBW, percentage of BF and WHR are 0.8, 0.66 and 0.44 respectfully. The conclusion of this survey is that it is better to estimate the value of total body fat and percentage of body fat than the value of BMI in the analysis of prevalence of obesity and its related factors of middle aged women.

• 고양숙 | Ko, Yang-Sook