Associations of anthropometric measures and occupational task performance among Brazilian Air Force cadets: Anthropometric measures predicting task performance

Anthropometric measures predicting task performance

Abstract

Aim: The Brazilian Air Force (BAF) has developed physical employment standards and a physical training program for its career officers, aiming to improve these troops' preparedness and combat readiness. Alongside this process, researchers have been investigating factors that could impact performance on occupational military tasks, trying to establish reliable predictive models, such as anthropometric measures. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the associations between anthropometric measures and occupational task performance among BAF cadets. Methods: The sample consisted of 155 cadets from the BAF (14 women). The research was carried out fully in accordance with the ethical standards, and the subjects signed an Informed Consent Form. The cadets participated in three testing sessions: in the first session, they were submitted to the anthropometric assessments (height and weight to calculate body mass index, and skinfold thickness to determine body fat percentage). In the second session, they were submitted to a 150 m swimming test, wearing the utility uniform, and, in the last testing session, they completed a 12-km foot march, wearing the utility uniform and carrying approximately 25 kg of equipment. Results: There were found weak correlations between the variables and poor predictive regression equations, explaining only 21.5% and 2.7 % of the variance found on the foot march and the swimming test, respectively. Conclusion: In conclusion, the results highlighted that further studies are needed to investigate such an issue, using more variables, validated operational tests, and a larger sample.