Health Risk Associated with Obesity in North Indian Rural Population: Population Based Survey

Obesity poses an alarming threat for NCDs like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc., Weight circumference, Weight-Height-Ratio like indices assess obesity related disease. To study distribution of obesity in rural North-Indian population and efficiency of indices like WC, BMI for predicting obesity related health risk.

The cross-sectional study was done among the rural population in two blocks of Dehradun districts of Uttarakhand. The study pretested questionnaire was used to obtain demographic information and calibrated equipment were used for Weight, height, BP, WC. Blood samples of all participants were taken in ICMR laboratory for blood sugar and lipid profiles. The institutional ethical clearance was taken for the study. After obtaining institutional ethical clearance, all data were trimmed and analyzed using SPSS. Age, weight, height, WC, WHtR were presented as Mean ± SD. Chi-square and t-test were used for categorical data. Regression analysis was used to assess better tools for health risk prediction.

The mean age of 456 participants was 48.8 years. 31.8% of participant are obese (average BMI = 30.32 kg/m² and WC = 83.22 cm). Around 42% of obese belong to age 16-44 years. WC was significantly higher (P < 0.005) than BMI among obese females. Obesity possesses significant risk of Dyslipidemia, Hypertension, and Diabetes independently (P < 0.005). WC can be considered as proxy to predict health related risk (AUC = 0.973) compared to BMI (AUC = 0.767).

This study confirms the obesity related health risk increase irrespective of type of obesity. However, WC can better predict the health risk compared to BMI.