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The Prevalence of Abdominal Obesity and Its Correlates among the Adults in Dodoma Region, Tanzania: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study

Mariam John Munyogwa

Introduction: The number of people with both generalized and abdominal obesity has been increasing worldwide. The prevalence of obesity has almost doubled over the last 30 years globally. According to the World Health Organization report of 2015, more than 1.9 billion adults (18 years and older) were overweight and, among them, over 650 million were obese. Overweight and obesity are a threat to the public health as they increase the likelihood of noncommunicable diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, obstructive sleep apnoea, and osteoarthritis and negatively affect reproductive performance the fundamental cause of overweight and obesity is the energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. Globally, there has been an increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat and increase in physical inactivity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many forms, such as spending much time on TV, changing modes of transportation, the increasing urbanization.

Background: Over the past years, overweight and obesity were considered the problem of the high-income countries; however, for the last three decades, the number of people with overweight and obesity had risen significantly in the lowand middle-income countries (LMIC), and particularly in the urban settings. Research from African countries shows that overweight and obesity have been increasing rapidly over the past twenty-five years, particularly in the urban settings. If this is not controlled, it may take epidemic proportions in the very near future. In Tanzania, the prevalence of overweight and obesity have been reported higher, particularly in urban areas of the country. The findings from the previous studies show that the prevalence of overweight and obesity had increased significantly since the 1980s, and the trend shows the prevalence has been doubling after every decade since the 1990s. However, many previous studies were conducted in cities and the highly urbanized areas of the country, particularly in Dar es Salaam city.

Method:- Administratively, the United Republic of Tanzania is divided into 30 regions (i.e., 25 in Tanzania mainland and 5 in Tanzania Zanzibar). (e regions are further divided into districts. (e districts are further divided into wards and wards into streets and villages in urban and rural settings, respectively. (is study was conducted in one of the regions of the country, namely, Dodoma. Dodoma Region is found at the centre of the country, and it is a semiarid area of Tanzania. (e Region is the 12th largest in the country and covers an area equivalent to 5% of the total area of Tanzania mainland. Administratively, the Region has seven districts with a total population of 2.08 million and annual growth rate. Ethnic groups are composed of Bantu-speaking people. Indigenous groups include Gogo, Rangi, Sandawe, Nguru, Zigua, Kaguru, Wambulu, and Wasagara who make almost three quarters of the total population. However, due to urbanization, many societies from various areas inside and outside the country are represented in the Region. Study Design and Study Population. (is study is a quantitative cross-sectional survey. The survey was conducted from January 2014 to January 2015. Study population involved adults aged 18 years and above living in the Dodoma Region

Results: The general characteristics of the study population stratified by gender are illustrated in Table 1. A total of 840 participants were involved in this study, whereby 305 (36.31%) were men and 535 (63.69%) were women. (e overall mean age of the study participants was 46.01 ± 15.72 years. Men were significantly older than women (47.82 ± 16.80 versus 44.97 ± 14.99,  0.0117, respectively). (e number of people living in urban areas was 435 (51.79%), while that of people from the rural area was 405 (48.21%). A majority of the participants were married (67.62%) and the percentage of married subjects was significantly higher among men (80.66%) than women (60.19%). Most (60.12%) of the study population had the primary education level. Significantly more men (29.84%) than women (20%) had the secondary or higher level of education. Forty-five percent of the study participants were peasants while men recorded a higher employed rate of 39.34% than women (37.20%). (The proportion of study population who report to be smoking were 20.12% with significantly much higher proportion of men than women

Biography:

Mariam John Munyogwa is working as a Proffesor in Department of Public Health, University of Dodoma, P.O. Box 395, Dodoma, Tanzania