Nutritional Status of Diabetic Women in Bangalore City, India

Bangalore being a large, fast growing metropolis and a major economic centre in India has a population of around 8 million of which 47.5 per cent are women. India, including Bangalore is designated as the world diabetic capital with highest number of diabetics with concurrent complications. But the risk becomes four-fold in case of women because of stress (at work, house-hold and marital), a highly competitive life style, eating out often, smoking, alcohol especially in the age group of 20 to 50 years. With this background, present study was taken up to assess the health and nutritional statuses of diabetic women.30 diabetic women were selected from Bangalore city. Anthropometric measurement (height, weight, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, and skinfold thickness) were obtained according to standard techniques. The results revealed that, the mean age of respondents was 53 year, height-154.85cm. Weight-61.67kg, BMI-26.02 kg/m2, waist-102 cm, hip-105.9 cm, waist to hip ratio-0.98 and skin fold thickness-1.84. Majority of the respondents belong to the overweight category (BMI-23.0-27.0 kg/m2). Among the subjects 73 per cent were having family history of diabetes. Nearly 90 per cent of subjects experienced the symptoms of fatigue, 73.33 per cent polyurea and followed by weight loss. With respect to dietary pattern, majority of the respondents were non vegetarian and eat food three times a day and having a snacking habit. From the above observation it could be concluded that higher BMI, family history and food habits were one of the contributing factor for nutritional status and occurrence of diabetes mellitus.