HUANG, KUO-CHIN, MEEI-SHYUAN LEE, SHYH-DYE LEE, YUNG-HAN CHANG, YI-CHIN LIN, SU-HAO TU, AND WEN-HARN PAN. Obesity in the elderlyand its relationship with cardiovascular risk factors in Taiwan. Obes Res. 2005;13:170 -178. Objectives: The obese elderly are at increased risk of mortality, morbidity, and functional disability. In this study, we examined the prevalence of obesity and relationship between various anthropometric indices (AI) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in the elderly. Research Methods and Procedures:A stratified multistage clustered sampling scheme was used in the Elderly Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan during 1999 to 2000. 2432 non-institutionalized subjects (age, 72.8 Ϯ 9.4 years; BMI, 23.6 Ϯ 6.4 kg/m 2 ) were recruited. The receiver operating characteristic analysis was used to compare predictive validity of CVD risk factors among various AI, including BMI, waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). Results: The prevalence of obesity was 29.0% in men and 36.8% in women by obesity criteria for Asians (BMI Ն 25 kg/m 2 ) and 13.3% in men and 21.0% in women by the Taiwanese definition (BMI Ն 27 kg/m 2 ). Odds ratios of acquiring various CVD risk factors increased significantly with increment of WC, WHR, and BMI. The areas under the curve predicting metabolic syndrome were all Ͻ0.8. The cut-off values of WC corresponding to the highest sensitivity and the highest specificity in predicting various CVD risk factors were 86.2-88.0 cm in men and 82.0 -84.0 cm in women, respectively. Discussion: Obesity was prevalent in the Taiwanese elderly. WC was related to CVD risk factors to a greater extent than BMI and WHR. However, none of them alone was a good screening tool for CVD risk factors. Therefore, how to apply AI prudently to screen elderly for CVD risk factors needs further research.

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social distance, interview rapport, respondent cooperation, item non-response, don’t know, refusal,

Previous studies have demonstrated that women are more likely than men to support egalitarian gender-role attitudes (Brewster and Padavic 2000; Katsurada and Sugihara 1999; Mason and Lu 1988; Rice and Coates 1995; Wilson and Smith 1995). While considerable attention has been paid to country differences in gender-role attitudes associated with women’s—especially married women’s—employment at the individual and societal levels, the industrialization hypothesis used in the previous studies has, however, yielded inconsistent results (Haller and Hoellinger 1994; Alwin, Braun, and Scott 1992; Baxter and Kane 1995; Crompton and Harris 1997; Hsieh and Burgess 1994; Panayotova and Brayfield 1997; Scott and Duncombe 1992). Several issues have remained unexplored. The first is a theoretical explanation for attitudinal gender differences varying by society when considering non-economic social forces, such as social-political ideology, national policy, and other institutional forces. The second is the extent to which factors corresponding to gender socialization at the individual, familial, and societal levels structure female and male attitudes differently. The third is national comparison focusing on non-Western populations; previously, attention has focused on Western societies.

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