Prevalence and Covariates of Obesity in Lebanon: Findings from the First Epidemiological Study

Abstract

SIBAI, ABLA MEHIO, NAHLA HWALLA, NADA ADRA, AND BOUSHRA RAHAL. Prevalence and covariates of obesity in Lebanon: findings from the first epidemiological study. Obes Res. 2003;11:1353-1361. Objective: To estimate the prevalence of overweight and obesity and examine associated covariates in the Lebanese population. Research Methods and Procedures:A cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of 2104 individuals, 3 years of age and older. Anthropometric measurements and dietary assessments were conducted following standard methods and techniques. Overweight and obesity (classes I to III) were defined according to internationally standardized criteria for classification of BMI. Results: For children 3 to 19 years of age, prevalence rates of overweight and obesity were higher overall for boys than girls (22.5% vs. 16.1% and 7.5% vs. 3.2%, respectively). For adult men and women (age Ն 20 years), the prevalence of overweight was 57.7% and 49.4%, respectively. In contrast, obesity (BMI Ն 30 kg/m 2 ) was higher overall among women (18.8%) than men (14.3%), a trend that became more evident with increasing obesity class. BMI, percentage of body fat, and waist circumference increased to middle age and declined thereafter. Whereas lack of exercise associated significantly with obesity among children, obesity in older adults was more prevalent among the least educated, nonsmokers, and those reporting a family history of obesity. Discussion: The results from this national population-based study in Lebanon show high prevalence rates of overweight and obesity comparable with those observed in developed countries such as the United States. While further studies are needed to examine the underlying social and cultural factors associated with lifestyle and nutritional habits, now is the time to institute multicomponent interventions promoting physical activity and weight control nationwide.

Fetal macrosomia and adolescence obesity: results from a longitudinal cohort study

“…Obesity rate observed in this study was much lower than the rates reported in recent literature from various non-Chinese adolescent populations [29][30][31] and the rates reported in a national survey of Chinese cities in children aged 7 to 18 years in 2000. 20 As we used the same criterion to define obesity as the Chinese national survey, the lower rate observed in our study could not be explained by differences in definition.…”

“…Of notice is that in the calculation of these rates, definition of childhood/adolescent obesity has been stratified by gender: BMI of 22.5, 23.6, 24.7, 25.7, and 26.4, respectively, for boys aged 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 years, and 22.1, 23.3, 24.2, 25.6, and 26.3, respectively, for girls. Higher obesity rates in boys than in girls have also been reported in countries outside China, 29,30 but not in other studies. 31,41,42 Cultural and life-style factors during early childhood and adolescence could be the explanations for the differences in sex-obesity relationship reported in different populations.…”

Overweight and obesity in Italian adults 2004, and an overview of trends since 1983

“…As it was shown in several developed countries, including Western European countries (Seidell and Flegal, 1997;Sundquist and Johansson, 1998;Martinez et al, 1999;Sarlio-Lahteenkorva and Lahelma, 1999;Aranceta et al, 2001;Tur et al, 2005), the USA (Freedman et al, 2002), but even in the developing world with a comparatively high gross domestic product (Sibai et al, 2003;Monteiro et al, 2004), prevalence of overweight and obesity was inversely associated with levels of education. Therefore, in Italy, lowereducated categories have an unfavourable pattern not only in terms of smoking prevalence (Gallus et al, 2006), but also in terms of obesity.…”

“…In Great Britain, over the last few years, 24% of adults were obese (Rennie and Jebb, 2005), in Spain 13-15% (Aranceta et al, 2003;Martinez et al, 2004;Neira and de Onis, 2005) and in Denmark 12% (Bendixen et al, 2004). Among other countries, in Turkey 22% were obese (Yumuk, 2005), in Russia 18% (Popkin and Doak, 1998;Arroyo et al, 2000), in Mexico 21% (Arroyo et al, 2000) and in Lebanon 16% (Sibai et al, 2003). Furthermore, in the USA, two in three adults had a BMI X25 kg/m 2 , and almost one in three X30 kg/m 2 (Flegal et al, 2002(Flegal et al, , 2004aFreedman et al, 2002;Yanovski and Yanovski 2002;Manson and Bassuk, 2003;Hedley et al, 2004;Baskin et al, 2005).…”

Gender differences in determinants of weight-control behaviours among adolescents in Beirut

“…Physical activity was defined in two ways: following Lowry et al (36) and following Sibai et al (7) . According to the first method (36) , physical activity was divided into vigorous (e.g.…”