Obesity status and its related risk factors in women of reproductive age under the coverage of healthcare centers in Rasht

Background: Obesity is considered one of the most serious public health challenges of the early 21st century. Overall, about 13% of the world’s adult population (11% of men and 15% of women) was obese in 2016. Obesity is a clearly associated with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular conditions, diabetes and cancer inthe population. Patterns of obesity differ between countries, regions and by country income, with obesity more prevalent among women in developing countries. Changes indietary and physical activity patterns are often the result of environmental and societal changes associated with development and lack of supportive policies in sectors such as health, agriculture, transport, urban planning, environment, food processing, distribution, marketing, and education Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out from January to March 2016 among married women of reproductive age (15 to 49 years old) in an urban population of Rasht city, north of Iran. Participants were selected by cluster sampling based on 33 healthcare centers under the coverage of Guilan University of Medical Sciences. Each healthcare center was considered as a cluster and also random sampling of sub-clusters was conducted based on record numbers of households in healthcare centers’ files. A structured questionnaire was used and it included four parts. The first part was about socio-demographic characteristics. In the second part, we measured the height and weight of individuals. The third part was about lifestyle. The fourth part was about the history of the disease. The distribution of independent variables and BMI groups were tested with χ2 -test. Data analysis was carried out with SPSS version 22. Results: Overall, 26.6% of women were classified as obese. Results of showed that obesity status was significantly associated with some of the personal status covariates. Participants who had elementary education level (40.8%) were more obese. The prevalence of obesity was higher among married (29.8%) and housewife women (30.8%). They who had physical activity (78.6%) and high income (78.3%) were less obese. Women who consumed less dairy (30.6%) and fish (27.4%) were more obese. Nonsmoker’s women (27%) were more obese. And finally, the prevalence of obesity was higher among women who had high blood pressure (65.0%), Hyperlipidemia (46.9%) and Musculoskeletal disorders (48.1%). Conclusion: The prevalence of obesity in Iranian women was as high as the other countries. There is a need to provide clients and their healthcare providers with powerful tools to treat and reduce obesity by improving access to obesity screening and counseling services, another potential area is the improvement of public transportation where people can improve physical activity by walking to public transportation from their home. Finally, there is also need to empower women to take decisions that help them to prevent obesity.

کلیدواژه ها:

BMI ، Obesity ، Reproductive Age ، Women