Aim and Objectives: To study heart rate variability (HRV) and to compare in the pre-prandial and post-prandial state in obese and non-obese young healthy females.

Methodology: 50 obese and 50 non-obese young healthy females aged between 21 and 25 years were selected based on body mass index. HRV was recorded in both pre- and post-prandial state by using computer based software device, digital finger pulse photoplethysmography (DFP) to identify separate frequency components, i.e., total power (TP), low-frequency (LF) power and high frequency (HF) power.

Results: All the statistical methods were carried out through the SPSS for windows version 16.0. The independent samples T-test procedure was done to compare the means for the two groups. P value ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. HRV analysis found significantly lower values of LF, HF in millisecond square (ms2) and HF in the normalized unit (nu) and higher values of LF (nu) and LF/HF ratio among the obese group in both pre- and post-prandial state when compared to the non-obese group.

Conclusion: Our data indicate that obese subjects have decreased parasympathetic activity as evidenced by decrease in TP (ms2), LF (ms2), HF (ms2), and HF (nu), and increase in sympathetic activity as evidenced by increase in HR, LF (nu) and LF/HF ratio in both pre- and post-prandial state.