PREVALENCE OF OBESITY AND ASSOCIATED RISK FACTORS IN A FEMALE POPULATION OF RURAL PESHAWAR-PAKISTAN

OBJECTIVES: This study was undertaken to find out the prevalence of overweight and obesity, its risk factors, and association with different diseases in the rural females of Peshawar. METHODOLOGY: This cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2010 on 2296 non-pregnant women age 15-70 years. Overweight/obesity was defined as a BMI (body mass index) of 23 kg/m2 and obesity as BMI 27 kg/m2. Results are presented as mean+ SD, %ages odd ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) by using EPI-Info 6.0. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of overweight and obesity was 1226 (53.4%) and 619 (26.9%) respectively. Out of 2296 women, 2054 (89.5%) were married females. Obesity was increasing with age. Hypertension and diabetes was three times more prevalent in overweight and obese women as 3.67 (2.62-5.16) p 0.0001 and 3.77 (1.73-8.46) p 0.0002 respectively as compared to non obese female. Married women, parity 5 and low income were significantly associated as 3.46 (2.52-4.77) p 0.0001, 1.77 (1.42-2.20) p 0.0001 and 2.99 (2.22-4.03) p 0.0001 respectively with increased risk of obesity. More health problems were reported by the obese women CONCLUSION: Obesity among women is a serious problem in this region. Marriage, parity, ageing are responsible for high prevalence of obesity that resulted in high frequency of diseases especially hypertension and diabetes in the female population