This study was done to determine the effects of walking exercise training(WET) on metabolic syndrome risk factors and body composition in obese middle school girls.

A non-equivalent pretest-posttest experimental design was used. Twenty seven subjects participated in this study from one women's middle school in Busan. The participants were purposely allocated to an experimental group (n=14) and a control group (n=13). The experimental group participated in 30-60 minutes of WET with 55 to 75% of a maximal heart rate six days a week for 12 weeks.

The prevalence of individual risk factors on metabolic syndrome were improved in the experimental group after the intervention. The high waist circumference(WC), high triglyceride(TG), low high density lipoprotein cholesterol(HDL-C), high blood pressure(BP) and high fasting glucose(FG) were 21.4, 21.4, 14.3, 28.6 and 7.2%, respectively. There were significant differences in WC (F=22.24, p<.001), TG (F=5.34, p=0.30), body weight(F=21.99, p<.001), fat mass(F=19.17, p<.001), and % body fat(F=17.93, p<.001) between the experimental and control group after the intervention. However, there were no significant differences in HDL-C, FG and BP between the experimental and control group after the intervention.

These results indicate that WET is effective in decreasing risk factors of the metabolic syndrome and body composition components in obese middle school girls. These findings suggest that WET can be useful as a nursing intervention in the prevention of obesity-related disorders in obese adolescents.