A Study of Obesity and Associated Factors in a Selected Urban Area of Mysore

Obesity is often defined simply as a condition of abnormal or excessive fat accumulation in adipose tissue, to the extent that health may be impaired. Obesity is often expressed in terms of Body Mass Index (BMI). In the past 20 years, the prevalence rates of obesity have tripled in developing countries that have been adopting a western life style involving decreased physical activity and over consumption of cheap, energy dense food. Although obesity should be considered as a disease in its own right, it is also one of the key risk factors for other non-communicable diseases such as noninsulin dependent diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and cancer. In this study an attempt was made to estimate the prevalence of obesity and to identify the factors associated with obesity.

The objectives were to estimate the prevalence of obesity in a selected urban area of Mysore and to identify the factors associated with obesity in the selected study population.

A total of 1551 adults within the age group of 20–60 years constituted the study population. Pregnant women and lactating mothers were excluded from the study. Subjects with BMI ≥ 30 were considered as obese, BMI ≥ 25–29.9 as overweight (pre obese) and BMI < 25 as non-obese. BMI is defined as weight in kilogram divided by the square of height in meter. Cross-sectional study was done to estimate the prevalence of obesity. Data was collected on certain selected factors such as age, gender, education, occupation, non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes. Height and weight were measured according to the standard procedure and BMI was calculated. Statistical tests used were chi-square test.

Prevalence rates of obesity in relation to selected variables were calculated. Overall prevalence rate of obesity was 6.5% and overweight was 26.2%. Prevalence rate of obesity was; highest in 50–60 years (11.9%), lowest in 20–29 years (1.7%), more in females (10.6%) compared to males (2.4%), low in higher educational status (3.7%) compared to illiterates (6.9%), more in occupation with sedentary type of work (9%) compared to moderate work(1.1%), more in known hypertensives (34.2%) compared to no hypertensives (4.4%) and more in known diabetics (25.6%) compared to no diabetes (5.4%).

Prevalence rate of obesity was 6.5% and overweight was 26.2% and factors found to be associated with obesity/overweight were age, gender, occupation, diabetes and hypertension.