A statistical bulletin on women’s obesity status in the southern states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu has revealed that women are more overweight or obese than men both at the country-level (women at 24%, men at 22.9%), as well as in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Though the incidence is marginally lower in Karnataka and Telangana, the levels are higher than the national average in all the southern states for both men and women. The bulletin was released by the Council for Social Development in Hyderabad wherein the authors used BMI data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 (2019-2021) for their analysis. The study was conducted among women in the age group of 15-49 years from 120 districts in south India – 31 districts in Telangana, 30 in Karnataka, 13 in Andhra Pradesh, 14 in Kerala and 32 in Tamil Nadu.
The paper also revealed that at the national level, the prevalence of overweight/obesity is high among Christians (31.2%). Even among Muslim and Hindu women, the prevalence is more than or around one-fourth. In southern states, however, the prevalence is more among Muslims in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Telangana.
Social category-wise prevalence of overweight/obesity among women indicates higher incidence among Others (29.6%) followed by Other Backward Classes (24.6%), Scheduled Caste (21.6%) and Scheduled Tribe (12.6%) at all India level. Similar pattern may be observed among southern states too.
Southern states represent high levels of overweight/obesity among urban women, much higher than the national level. The prevalence among rural areas is also quite higher than the national one, with around one-fourth of women from highest wealth category reported to be overweight/obese in Karnataka and Telangana, while it is one-third or more in the rest of the south Indian states.
Wealth index categorisation shows that at the national level, the prevalence is more among the highest wealth category (38.6%) closely followed by fourth (30.5%) and middle (23.7%) groups. In southern states, the incidence is alarmingly high (nearly or more than half of the women), and is highest in the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The researchers found a few interesting facts when they compared data on incidence of overweight/obesity among women between National Family Health Survey-4 and 5. At the national level, it increased by 3.3% and a similar pattern can be found across the southern states as well. In Tamil Nadu, the increase was highest (by 9.5%), closely followed by Karnataka and Kerala (6.9% and 5.7%, respectively), whereas it was the least in Telangana (2%).
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines adult overweight and obesity as follows: overweight are those adults with a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than or equal to 25; and obese are those adults whose BMI is greater than or equal to 30.
In India, the prevalence of overweight and obesity has been increasing at a fast pace than the world average. Incidence of being overweight increased from 8.4% to 15.5% among women between 1998 and 2015.
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