Nutrition disorders, health and mortality

Paper examined self perception of body weight, future intention for weight management and actual weight management behaviour among normal, overweight and obese women in Urban India. 325 ever-married aged 20-54 years systematically selected from the second round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2, 1998-99) were re-interviewed after four years in 2003. Information on woman’s perception about their own weight, intention of weight management and actual weight management behaviour were collected through personal interview. Anthropometric measurements were obtained from women to compute their current body mass index. Discrepancy between self perceived body weight and women’s actual body weight was noticed. One-fourth overweight women and one in ten obese women perceived themselves as normal. Though a majority of overweight and obese women wanted to reduce their weight, a significant proportion of overweight (one in four) and 4% obese women also wanted to maintain their weight as it is. Only one in three overweight and one in four obese women were performing exercise to reduce their weight. These finding are important for public health interventions in obesity care in urban India.

This study using nationally representative multiple data sources spanning the period between 1992-2006 investigates whether mother’s empowerment affects children’s nutritional status as measured by z scores on ‘weight for height’, ‘weight for age’ and ‘height for age’. Findings indicate differences in nutritional status by child’s gender, region, caste. Further, multivariate analyses show that relative bargaining index defined as the share of mother’s schooling years over father’s schooling years positively and significantly influence the short term measures of nutritional status of children, namely, z scores of ‘weight- for- age’ and ‘weight- for- height’. However, the estimates of quantile regression suggest that the bargaining power will improve the chronic measure of nutritional status, namely, ‘height for age’ at only the low end of conditional distribution of z score. Additionally, access to health insurance programs and improvement in infrastructure and environment emerge as important factors in reducing child malnutrition.

Poverty is usually associated with food scarcity and under nutrition, but recent statistics tell us that in developed countries there seems to be a correlation between poverty and obesity, the so called Poverty-Obesity paradox. This paper investigates this relation for elderly in Europe using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement. We account for endogeneity with a bivariate probit model, where identification is achieved using regional poverty as instrument for poverty status.

Three recent studies, all using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), reached three different conclusions regarding the changing association between body mass index (BMI) and mortality in the US. This paper used the NHANES I and NHANES III data to examine mortality differences across BMI categories. The purpose is 1) to replicate previous analyses and reconcile discrepant findings in existing research and 2) to focus attention on variations across time periods and birth cohorts as well as variations across socio-demographic sub-populations. Preliminary results show that male and female BMI-related mortality differences are fairly similar in 1971-87, but diverge substantially afterwards. Relative to the normal-weight, mortality for almost all overweight and obese categories increases from 1971-87 to 1988-2006 among women. Relative mortality decreases over time among older men, but the decrease is substantial and significant for the class I obese only. These results caution against sweeping statements about BMI and mortality, and deserve the attention of those interested in the underlying mechanisms of the association and its implications for mortality trends.

Objective: This study aims to shed light on prevalence of underweight and overweight and its variations by socioeconomic factors in Thai Nguyen province of Vietnam.
Method: A total of 2695 respondents were successfully completed the questionnaire. Both WHO cut-off points for Asian and Pacific (AP) and international classification for Body mass index were used. Statistical analysis was performed using Stata software with the svy procedure.
Results: The prevalence of underweight is 20.1%, it is slightly but not significantly higher in females (21.2%) than males (18.9%). The prevalence of overweight in international and AP standards are 5.2% and 15.5% respectively. Again, no significant difference between males and females is found. There are no significant differences by ethnicity. People in middle aged have lowest risk of underweight and older people have greater risk of overweight than other. Higher income is associated with higher risk of overweight and lower income is associated with underweight. But this result is only significant in highest income group.
Conclusion: People of middle age, living in city or town are at lower risk of underweight. Whereas, people who is older and richest has greater risk of overweight.
Key words: underweight, overweight, Thai Nguyen, Vietnam