Prevalence of Over-Weight and Obesity and its Association with Hypertension among Women in Urban Area of Southern Rajasthan

OBJECTIVE To describe the prevalence of overweight and obesity and its association with hypertension among women in an urban area of Southern Rajasthan. DESIGN A cross sectional community based descriptive study conducted among 940 Women aged 15-49 years residing in selected urban area after taking consent. RESULT For women, aged 15-49 years, the prevalence of overweight and obesity is 17 % and 40 % respectively. Distribution of females according to BP value showed that majority of overweight (15.25 %) and obese (55.28 %) females were from hypertension class I, while 18.56 % overweight and 35.26 % obese females had pre- hypertension.51.66 % obese and 5 % overweight females had Grade II hypertension. CONCLUSION Obesity is the leading cause of origin of non communicable diseases. The adverse effects of obesity to emerge in population in transition are hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and glucose intolerance, while CAD and the long term complication to emerge several years later.