Prevalence of Overweight Among Adult Women of A Metropolitan

INTRODUCTION: Globally, Overweight has reached epidemic proportions. It is an excessive accumulation of fat that may impair health. Overweight and obesity area major contributor to the global burden of non-communicable disease. The prevalence of overweight is commonly assessed by using Body Mass Index (BMI), where overweight is indicated by BMI greater or equal to 25. Overall, about 13% of the world's adult population was obese in 2016, among them women were more affected than men. Overall,female population is higher than male in Nepal and concentrating on Kaski district female population are significantly more than that of male as per population census of 2011. The objective of this study was to find out the prevalence of overweight among adult women. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study, conducted among calculated sample size of 185 adult women of Lekhnath Metropolitian of Kaski district, over six months' period. Sampling technique was proportionate random sampling. Ethical approval was taken from Institutional Review Board (Ref no. 40/74/75). Anthropometric measurement was taken to calculate BMI. Collected data was entered in Epi data, which was then exported to SPSS version 20 for further analysis. Descriptive statistics was reported for demographic, socio-economic and various overweight related factors of the respondents as frequencies and percentage. RESULTS: Out of 185 adult women, 69 (37.3%) of them were overweight, 30 (16.2%) of them were obese, and central obesity was seen among 97 (52.4%) women at 95% C.I. CONCLUSIONS: The finding of this study shows prevalence of overweight and obesity was high. Regular Physical exercise and balanced diet should be followed to prevent overweight and non-communicable diseases.