Changing scenario of obesity and underweight among women in India – Revisited

Introduction: Obesity and underweight are a concern at global level, and its public health impact can be observed both in developed and developing countries. Objective: To evaluate percent change in prevalence of obesity and underweight and their associated factors. Methods: The NFHS-2 (1998-99) and NFHS-3 (2005-06) were used as the data source for our study. A stratified cluster multistage sampling design was used by NFHS to collect data from the 24 states, The variables used for present analysis were prevalence of nutritional status indicators such as obesity/overweight or underweight prevalence among ever married women aged 15-49 years for different factors of age, Residence, Education, Religion, Caste/tribe, Standard of living index. Results: The prevalence of obesity was 2.8% in NFHS 3 (2005-06) resulted from increase of 27.3% from NFHS 2 (1998-99). A south region of India was having highest magnitude of obesity (3.7-5.1%). Prevalence of Underweight was 35.2% in India and was declined by only 0.6% in NFHS 3 from NFHS 2. Maximum prevalence of underweight was found in East (34.1-44.0). Factors associated with obesity were age cut off of less than 20 years (10%) and wealth index. Conclusion: Problem of underweight continue to exists at the same level while obesity is on rise and appropriate public health measures to check them is essential.