Background: Bus drivers are exposed to unique working conditions. The behavioral and health trends of these workers should be investigated.
Objective: To estimate the prevalence of abdominal obesity and associated lifestyle factors in bus drivers in a city in Southern Brazil.
Methods: A cross-sectional study with 103 bus drivers with mean age of 41 years (±8.5) was conducted. Abdominal obesity was measured through waist circumference using anthropometric tape. To evaluate the different lifestyle domains, the Brazilian version of the Canadian Fantastic Lifestyle questionnaire was used. To check the association between abdominal obesity and lifestyle, binary logistic regression was used, with odds ratio (OR) estimates and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).
Results: It was verified that 26.3% of drivers had abdominal obesity. In addition, bus drivers who had inadequate lifestyle in the "Nutrition" and "Type of behavior" domains were, respectively, 3.6 (95% CI: 1.3-9.5, p = 0.01) and 2.6 times (95% CI: 1.1-6.7; p = 0.04) more likely of having abdominal obesity when compared to those adequate in these lifestyle domains.
Conclusions: Approximately one in four drivers had abdominal obesity and the "Nutrition" and "Type of Behavior" domains were associated with abdominal obesity.
Keywords: Body composition; Brazil; bus drivers; food behavior; risk behavior; waist circumference; worker’s health.