General and abdominal adiposity in a representative sample of Portuguese adults: dependency of measures and socio-demographic factors’ influence

Abstract

The aims of this study were: (i) to estimate the dependency between BMI and waist:height ratio (WHtR) as measures of general and abdominal adiposity, and (ii) to evaluate the influence of socio-demographic factors on both measures and on their dependency in risk classification. Data from a cross-sectional study conducted in 2009 among a representative sample of 3529 Portuguese adults were used. Height, weight and waist were measured and socio-demographic data (sex, age, education level, occupational status, marital status, region of residence) were obtained. Using logistic regression, crude and adjusted OR for high general (BMI ≥25·0 kg/m 2 ) and abdominal (WHtR ≥0·5) adiposity, and for incompatible classification between them, were calculated. Above half (50·8 %) of the respondents had high BMI and 42·1 % had high WHtR, and the rates were higher in men than in women. There was an inverse association between education level and both adiposity measures. The lowest prevalence of high general and abdominal adiposity was observed in students and singles, whereas the highest was found in retired, widowed and respondents from Azores, Madeira and Alentejo. Nearly a quarter of respondents (24·0 %) were incompatibly classified by BMI and WHtR, with higher prevalence in men than in women and in low-than in high-educated people. Future surveys should focus on developing at least sex-specific cut-offs for both measures. Implementation of effective strategies for preventing and reducing high adiposity levels in Portugal should be directed primarily to men, older, low-educated individuals, as well as those living in the islands and poor regions of the country.Key words: Socio-demographic factors: Obesity: Abdominal adiposity: Waist:height ratio: BMI The prevalence of overweight and obesity in the world is growing every year (1) . In Europe, in particular, geographic variation in obesity occurrence was observed, with the rates being higher in central, eastern and southern countries than in northern and western ones (2,3) . On the basis of the European Nutrition and Health Report 2009, overweight and obesity prevalence was the highest in Cypriot men (83 %) and Greek women (73 %) and the lowest in Dutch men (42 %) and Norwegian and Austrian women (31 %) (3) . In Portugal, two representative national surveys conducted in 1995-1998 and 2003-2005 showed that overweight and obesity prevalence in adults increased from 49·6 to 53·6 % (4) . Between 2004 and 2009, the same rates increased from 54 to 60 % in men and from 46 to 49 % in women (3) . The prevalence of obesity in Portuguese adults increased about 20 % (from 12·8 to 15·4 %) between 2000 and 2010 (5) .Because of substantial health consequences, as an important risk factor of non-communicable diseases (NCD) that entails high costs of treatment, the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity is one of the most important challenges in public health (1,3,5,6) . The World Health Organization (1) reported that in the past 10 years the occurrence of NCD risk factors h...

Overweight and General and Abdominal Obesity in a Representative Sample of Spanish Adults: Findings from the ANIBES Study

“…In our study, the prevalence of abdominal obesity differed greatly depending on the criteria used, with 28% when WC was considered, and much higher (58.4%) using WHtR. These figures are slightly higher than those recently found among Portuguese population (42.1% of adults with high WHtR) [ 33 ] but similar to those found in other Spanish groups, which also observed the same discrepancy between these two indicators [ 4 ]. For example, Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al [ 5 ] found 22.2% abdominal obesity considering WC as a reference and 54.7% using WHtR ≥ 0.5.…”

“…In developing countries, the prevalence of obesity is usually higher in the female population, whereas the trend in developed countries varies [ 32 ]. For example, in Portugal [ 33 ], the Netherlands [ 34 ], and Bulgaria [ 35 ], the prevalence of overweight and obesity is higher among males, as in our study, while in Poland [ 2 ] it is higher among females. However, the results of other studies conducted in Spain show a variable trend: the 2012 ENRICA study showed that obesity affects up to 23,1% of men and 16.3% of women between 18 and 64 years of age [ 21 ]; the DORICA (Dyslipidemia, Obesity and Cardiovascular Risk in Spain) study noted that the prevalence of obesity was higher in women than men (17.5% versus 13.2%) [ 36 ]; and a study by Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al [ 5 ] found no differences in the prevalence of obesity according to sex, although the prevalence of overweight was higher among men.…”

Neck circumference as a screening measure of overweight/obesity among Indian adults

“…It is used to describe greater adiposity as compared to excess body weight relative to height, although it does not depict regional body adiposity distribution (Wells 2010;Mondal and Sen 2014). There is a large amount of scientific literature on the assessment of overweight and obesity among adult using this anthropometric index and here the recent studies of Das and Bose (2006), Sarkar et al (2009), Chopra et al (2013), , Shafaghi et al (2014), Anuradha et al (2015), Rengma et al (2015) and Kowalkowska et al (2016) are mentionable. It is now an established fact that a BMI value of ≥25.00 kg m −2 is a major risk factor for a wide range of metabolic diseases such as cardio-vascular diseases (Mandviwala et al 2016), hypertension (Kelly et al 2015), type II diabetes (Bhowmik et al 2014) and certain types of cancers (Argolo et al 2015).…”

“…This complex envi-ronment consists of genetic (Sitek et al 2014;Rosset et al 2016), socio-economic (Chung et al 2016;Kowalkowska et al 2016), nutritional (Gurnani et al 2015;Binks 2016) and psychological (Czegledi 2016; Kelley et al 2016) factors. Obesity is becoming a major public health issue in both the developed and developing countries as it contributes to numerable preventable, non-communicable diseases and related mortalities and morbidities (Huxley et al 2010;Misra and Khurana 2011;WHO 2011;Akin and Nienaber 2015).…”

Neck circumference can differentiate obese from non-obese individuals

“…It was described in a recent study that high general adiposity is more frequent in men than in women and in older age groups. 12 Different populations may have different genetic, social, geographic characteristics, as well as different levels of food availability, physical activities and other influences relevant to the development of obesity. It is not easy to arrive at conclusions that are the same for all populations.…”