Prevalence and Risk Factors of Obesity among Women

Background: Obesity is a state throughout that there’s a generalized buildup of humoring fat among the body, leading to a weight of quite two hundredth of the essential weight. Fatness invites disability, disease and premature death.[1] Women are vulnerable to becoming overweight because of inadequate resources for physical activity, healthy food choices and family demands.

Objective: 

. To review the prevalence of obesity among women.

2. To determine risk factors of obesity among women.

Material and Method: A Quantitative approach with descriptive survey design was adopted for this present study. It was conducted among 300 adult women aged 20-60 years of selected wards of Athirampuzha Panchayat using simple random sampling method. BMI was calculated by WHO Asian classification and risk assessment check list was used to identify risk factors. Odd’s ratio was used to examine association between obesity and risk factors.

Results: Prevalence of obesity was 24.3%.It was found that 66.2% of women were housewives. Common risk factors of obesity identified among women were consumption of bakery items (40%), family history and history of hypothyroidism (23.3%), excessive intake of fried item (35%), lack of exercise (34%), retained weight gain in relation to pregnancy (26.6%). Odds ratio shows significant positive association between obesity and risk factors [ OR> 1].

Conclusion: Enhancing knowledge regarding regular physical activity and healthy dietary practices would obviously decrease the risk factors of obesity which would turn improve the health status of the women.