Urban Gujarat battles with obesity

Food habits and lifestyle in urban areas are making Gujaratis overweight and prone to diabetes, blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart attacks

Devanshi Joshi. Ahmedabad/DNA

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Obesity has become one of the most serious public health problems in India. More than one third of Indians are overweight and about 1.15 billion people in developing countries suffer from severe obesity.Gujarat is also facing a problem of obesity. As per 2005-2006 National family Health Survey (NFHS), males in Gujarat are on the 10th rank in India for being obese while females in Gujarat are on the 7th ran. In urban areas, obesity is higher than in rural areas. Obesity is prevalent more in women than in men. According to the NFHS, 20.3% of women in Gujarat are overweight or obese. The occurrence of obesity in urban women is 20.5% higher than that in women living in rural areas. The survey says 15.5% men in Gujarat are overweight and obesity in urban males in the state is 15% higher than men in rural. Dr Sanjiv Haribhakti, says, "Genetic heritance is not the only cause of obesity but food habits and life styles also play an equal role in occurrence of obesity."As compared to people in western countries, people in India are shorter and they have less muscle mass which in turn puts in our population to a very high risk of developing diseases like diabetes, blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart attacks," he says. Most people are not aware of their BMI (Body Mass Index) which gives an idea of the ideal weight of an individual in proportion to his or her height. Ideal BMI should be 19-24.9. The higher BMI often becomes the cause of obesity. BMI greater than 40 shows high risk. As BMI increases, the chances of early death also increase. More than fifty percent of the adults in India suffer from obesity. About 55% adults have BMI more than 25.The higher rate of BMI requires treatment. Dr Harshad Soni says, "Obesity is a disease and it needs to be cured. A reasonable goal to reduce weight might be to make changes in lifestyle, increasing physical activity and limiting intake of calories. The initial goal for reducing weight should be to improve health rather than achieving ideal weight."