Soumya Swaminathan: Unhealthy diets, physical inactivity driving abdominal obesity in India

Unhealthy diets and physical inactivity are the main reasons for rising abdominal obesity in India said Soumya Swaminathan former WHO chief scientistSwaminathan who is currently the principal advisor for the Health Ministryrsquos tuberculosis programme called for expanding access to healthier diets and spaces for exercise in the country to fight against obesity which is already a global health concernObesity is a known precursor to diabetes hypertension and cancer the noncommunicable diseases rising significantly both in India and worldwideldquoAbdominal obesity unhealthy diets and physical inactivity are driving this unhealthy trendrdquo Swaminathan said in a post on XldquoMore awareness nutrition literacy expanded access to healthier diets spaces for exercise neededrdquo she added citing a recent study on abdominal obesity published in the journal The Lancet Regional HealthThe study led by researchers from IIHMR University in Jaipur and Johns Hopkins Universityrsquos Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US is based on data from the National Family Health Survey NFHS5 conducted in 201921The results showed that abdominal obesity is more prevalent among women 40 per cent than men 12 per centAbout 56 out of 10 women between the ages of 30 and 49 are abdominally obeseThe association of abdominal obesity in women is stronger in elderly women and nonvegetarians While abdominal obesity is more prevalent among people living in urban areas the study showed that it is also on the rise in rural areas and is penetrating lower and middle socioeconomic sections of societyIn India BMI has conventionally been used to measure obesity For the first time the NFHS5 assessed abdominal obesity through the waist circumference of 659156 women and 85976 men aged between 15 and 49 yearsThe study thus found that some women with healthy BMI also have abdominal obesityKerala 654 per cent Tamil Nadu 579 per cent Punjab 625 per cent and Delhi 59 per cent showed a high prevalence of abdominal obesity while Jharkhand 239 per cent and Madhya Pradesh 249 per cent had lower prevalence Besides indicating an ldquoemerging health risk for Indian womenrdquo the study also showed ldquoa double burden of malnutritionrdquo in the countryThe researchers urged the government to take proactive steps ldquoto design targeted interventions for the groups who have high abdominal obesity particularly for the women in their thirties and fortiesrdquoThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever