Introduction: As of June 2017, overweight and obesity as a global public health problem accounted for the largest absolute number of people in the Asia-Pacific region (1, 2). Overweight and obesity significantly contribute to disability and mortality caused by non-communicable diseases and decrease the quality of life (QoL), especially in women. (2, 3). Therefore, interventions that positively affect the quality of life and weight loss are important (3). Yoga is a common mind-body exercise that improves anthropometric parameters, body composition, and quality of life in overweight and obese people (4). Despite the limited studies in this field, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of 10 weeks of yoga exercise on the quality of life of overweight middle-aged women.

Method: There were 42 overweight middle-aged women (age range 40 to 60 years; group mean age ± SD; 53.67 ± 4.388 years) with a body mass index (BMI) ≥25. Participants were purposefully selected and randomly assigned to an exercise group or a control group. The exercise group received yoga intervention for 10 weeks, 3 sessions per week, and 50-90 minutes per session. All the participants were assessed using the SF-36 quality of life questionnaire. One-way ANOVA was used to calculate and compare between groups and dependent t-test was used to compare within groups (p≤0.05). Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS version 24 software.
Results: The results showed a significant increase in all sf-36 (p≤0.05)in the exercise group from the pre-test to the post-test. Moreover, there were no significant differences in all sf-36 dimensions (p>0.05) in the control group after the intervention. There were significant differences between the exercise and control groups after the intervention in all sf-36 dimensions (p≤0.05).

Conclusion: The present study's findings revealed that yoga can be recommended as a method for improving QoL in overweight middle-aged women.