General and abdominal obesity prevelances and their relations with metabolic syndrome components

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the frequency of obesity and its relation of metabolic syndrome. METHODS: The data from the records of the consecutive adult residents of Bursa province in Turkey who were admitted to the family health centers from the 1(st) January to the 31(st) December 2016 were evaluated retrospectively. The population size was 2901396 (N) and the sample size was at least n=17729. A total of 17812 participants (10939 females, 6873 males) were included in this retrospective observational study. Sociodemographic characteristics, diseases, used medication and smoking, height, weight, waist and hip circumferences (WaC and HC) were recorded from the files. RESULTS: The mean age of all subjects was 46.1 years, the mean BMI was 28.1 kg/m(2) with a mean WaC of 91.3 cm, HC of 104.7 cm, WHR of 0.87. The prevalence of obesity in Bursa was found to be 32.2% (37.8% in females and 23.3% in males) according to BMI, 63.2% (69.7% in females, 52.9% in males) according to waist and hip circumferences. CONCLUSIONS: Preventive measures should be taken by health authorities to prevent the rapid increase in general and abdominal obesity that may lead to serious comorbidities.