Overweight and obesity: a rising problem in India

Abstract

Background: Obesity is one of today’s most neglected public health problems. Childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health problems. Obesity causes cluster of non-communicable diseases and creating an enormous socioeconomic and public health burden. Methods: School based cross-sectional study was done in Udaipur city of Rajasthan. Simple random sampling method was used to obtain 1000 study subjects. Questionnaire included their general information, factor contributing to overweight and obesity. Results: 500 (50.00%) subjects were from the government schools and 500 (50.00%) from private schools. Among study participants 336 (33.60%), 332 (33.20%) and 332 (33.20%) were from 8th, 9th and 10th class respectively. 8.20% Overweight and 2.40% obesity found among school children. Overweight and obesity was found high in private schools 14.00% as compared to government schools 7.20%. The prevalence of overweight and obesity is slightly more in girls 12.60% than boys 8.60%. Conclusions: Prevalence of overweight and obesity is more than 10% in school children of Udaipur city, The prevalence of overweight and obesity was high among girls, among school children’s whose mother were working.

Body composition and prevalence of overweight and obesity and its determinants among adolescents in Manipur, North-Eastern India: a cross-sectional study

“…Similar findings were observed other studies conducted in Udaipur city and Nagpur. 12,26 The present study shows that body fat% is higher in girls as compared to boys. Similar findings are also reported by other studies.…”

“…Different school-based data on overweight and obesity in India shows a prevalence of 1.6-27.7% and 1.2-12.4% respectively among adolescents. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] In Northeastern India, the prevalence of overweight and obesity are 1.9-6.1% and 0.4-0.8% respectively. In the present study, the prevalence of overweight and obesity was found to be 6.4% and 1.2% respectively in Manipur.…”

“…Similar findings were observed in other studies carried out in different part of the country. 12,[20][21][22][23][24] This finding gives indirectly that students studying in private schools belong to higher socioeconomic strata as compared to those children studying in government schools because mostly people belonging to higher socioeconomic strata can afford private schooling of their children. Therefore, it shows that high socio-economic status plays a major role in the contributing factor of overweight and obesity.…”

“…Higher prevalence of obesity among girls was observed as compared to boys (1.6%vs1.0%) in the present. 12,13,15 This difference may be due to that during puberty, females have tendency to accumulate more fat and is a well-known fact that weight gain during puberty is physiological so puberty girls are more likely to overweight as compare to boys.…”

“…In India, many studies have shown that the prevalence of overweight and obesity among adolescents vary between 1.6-34.1% and 0.8-33.6% respectively. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Prevalence varies within the country may be because of differences in the lifestyle mainly in dietary pattern, emergence and acceptance of unhealthy lifestyles, physical activity, rapid unplanned urbanization and deterioration of environment. 16 Few data are available on prevalence of obesity from the northeastern India.…”