Baropodometric Parameters Variation With Body Weight Loss: a Prospective Cohort Study

Scientific Background Obesity is in one of the major public health problems of the 21st century and its prevalence has tripled in many European countries in the last decades. It is a strongly problem associated with a lower quality of life, as well as with the development of serious chronic metabolic, cardiac and circulatory pathologies and musculoskeletal disorders. Quantitative data showed that excessive body weight negatively effects on standing and walking.

Plantar pressure measurement is commonly used to determine specific loads on the plantar surface of the foot. There are many case studies that assess pressures of the normal foot and try to establish patterns of pathological pressures. The CoP represents the average of all the weight that is in contact with the surface of the floor and is expressed as the point where the vector of the vertical reaction forces of the soil is located.

In the literature it can be found how body weight influences on plantar pressure data and on the position of the CoP. Excesses of body weight has shown to have negative structural consequences in the feet and lower limbs. Obesity is also related with an anterior displacement of the CoP, since the instability in obese people, associated to weight increasing, seems to be determinant with CoP in an anterior position.

Computerized baropodometry is helpful for foot diseases diagnosis, foot function evaluation and to follow-up the treatment. It has been practiced to determine specific weight parameters in obese adults, among others. Nonetheless, there are not in the literature specific studies that have analyzed by computerized baropodometry how plantar pressures and CoP improve by decreasing body weight in obese adults.

Objective The present research wanted to evaluate plantar pressures and antero - posterior CoP improvement by decreasing body weight in static and dynamic baropodometry data collection in obese adults.