Overweight and obesity among women at reproductive age in Cambodia: Data analysis of Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey 2014

Abstract

Overweight and obesity increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, stroke, and some type of cancers, and maternal health globally. In Cambodia, the prevalence of overweight and obesity among women aged 15–49 years increased from 6% in 2000 to 18% in 2014, becoming a public health burden. We examined socio-demographic and behavioral factors associated with overweight and/or obesity among women of reproductive age (WRA) in Cambodia. We analyzed data from the 2014 Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey (CDHS) that used a two-stage stratified cluster sampling design. Data analysis was restricted to non-pregnant women, resulting in an analytic sample of 10,818 women. Multivariable logistic regressions were performed using STATA V16 to examine factors associated with overweight and obesity. Prevalence of overweight and obesity among non-pregnant women of reproductive age were 15.2% and 2.8% respectively. Factors independently associated with increased odds of overweight and/or obesity including women aged 20–29 years with adjusted odds ratio [AOR = 2.4; 95% CI: 1.6–3.6], 30–39 years [AOR = 4.6; 95% CI: 3.0–6.9], and 40–49 years [AOR = 6.6; 95% CI: 4.3–10.1], married women [AOR = 1.8; 95% CI: 1.3–2.7], urban residence [AOR = 1.3; 95% CI: 1.1–1.5], and women having at least 4 children [AOR = 1.7; 95% CI: 1.2–2.5]. The factors were associated with decreased odds of overweight and obesity: completed at least secondary education [AOR = 0.7; 95% CI: 0.6–0.8], agricultural work [AOR = 0.7; 95% CI: 0.5–0.8], and manual labor work [AOR = 0.7; 95% CI: 0.6–0.9]. Increased age, married women, living in urban residence, and having at least four children were the main risk factors associated with overweight and/or obesity. Conversely, higher education, working in agriculture, and working in manual labor were negatively associated with overweight and/or obesity. Cambodia’s non-communicable disease (NCD) public health programs should consider these characteristic for targeting interventions to further reduce overweight and/or obesity in the coming years.

Factors Associated with Overweight and Obesity among Women of Reproductive Age in Cambodia: Analysis of Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey

“…Older aged women were more likely to be overweight or obese as compared to younger women aged 15-19 years. This is consistent with other studies that showed obesity was more prevalent in older WRA [3,27]. The risk of women becoming overweight or obese rises with age, possibly due to unhealthy food consumption and a lack of physical activity [28].…”

“…Married women were more likely to be overweight or obese as compared to single women. Similar to previous study on the prevalence of overweight and obesity among WRA and its associated factors utilized CDHS data since 2014 [3], and in line with pooled analysis of DHS data among WRA in Bangladesh, Nepal, and India [29]. The explanation for that could be that married women busy working and take care their children and family may they do not pay more attention to nutritional and physical activity [3].…”

“…We followed the methods of Um S et al, 2023 [3]. To analyze the prevalence and factors Census 2019 [7].…”

“…Descriptive analyses that coupled cross-tabular frequency distributions with bivariate chi-square tests were used to assess associations between explanatory variables and the outcome variable Overweight/Obese. Variables associated with the outcome variable with a significance level of pvalue ≤ 0.10 [3] and follow these presents study [25,26] as potential confounder variables (for example, women's age, wealth index, alcohol consumption, residence, and geographic region)…”

“…Predictors of overweight and obesity among WRA from Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data such as Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and Ethiopia include higher socioeconomic status, older age, marriage, living in an urban residence, and lack of education [3,[10][11][12]. Women with formal employment had higher odds of being overweight or obese than informally employed women [3,13]. Also, women who used hormonal contraceptives such as oral contraceptive pills, implants, patches, and rings were at higher risk of being overweight or obese [14,15].…”