Unhealthy diet and physical inactivity are the causes of abdominal obesity in India: Soumya Swaminathan – Greater Kashmir

New Delhi, Oct 27: Unhealthy diet and physical inactivity are the main reasons for increasing abdominal obesity in India, said Soumya Swaminathan, former chief scientist of WHO.

Swaminathan, who is currently a senior advisor to the Ministry of Health’s tuberculosis program, called for expanding access to healthier diets and exercise spaces in the country to combat obesity, which is already a global health problem.

Obesity is a known precursor to diabetes, hypertension and cancer – non-communicable diseases that are increasing significantly in India and around the world.

“Abdominal obesity – unhealthy diet and physical inactivity are behind this unhealthy trend,” Swaminathan said in an article on X.

“More awareness, nutritional knowledge, expanded access to healthier food, spaces to exercise are needed,” she added, citing a recent study on abdominal obesity, published in the journal The Lancet Regional Health.

The study by researchers from IIHMR University, Jaipur and Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States is based on data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS- 5) conducted in 2019-2021. The results showed that abdominal obesity is more prevalent among women (40%) than men (12%).

About 5 to 6 in 10 women aged 30 to 49 are abdominally obese.

The association of abdominal obesity in women is stronger in older women and non-vegetarians. Although abdominal obesity is more prevalent among people living in urban areas, the study showed that it is also increasing in rural areas and is penetrating the lower and middle socio-economic strata of the population. Company.

In India, BMI is traditionally used to measure obesity. For the first time, the NFHS-5 assessed abdominal obesity based on waist circumference in 6,59,156 women and 85,976 men (aged 15-49 years).

The study revealed that some women with a healthy BMI also suffer from abdominal obesity.

Kerala (65.4 percent), Tamil Nadu (57.9 percent), Punjab (62.5 percent) and Delhi (59 percent) showed high prevalence of abdominal obesity, while the Jharkhand (23.9 percent) and Madhya Pradesh (24.9 percent) had lower prevalence.

Besides indicating an “emerging risk to Indian women’s health”, the study also showed “a double burden of malnutrition” in the country.

The researchers urged the government to take proactive steps “to design targeted interventions for groups with high abdominal obesity, particularly for women in their 30s and 40s”.