Obesity in adults from impoverished segments of the society

• Autor(a) principal: Pita MARINHO, Sheila
• Data de Publicação: 2003
• Outros Autores: Salas MARTINS, Ignez, Pires PERESTRELO, José Paulo, de OLIVEIRA, Denize Cristina
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Nutrição
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.puc-campinas.edu.br/nutricao/article/view/9131
• topic: obesity; overweight; social exclusion; adult; peripheric population; obesidade; sobrepeso; exclusão social; adulto; população periférica

In impoverished segments of the society, the increase in the incidence of obesity raises a question concerned with its etiology. The objective of this paper is to characterize the prevalences of overweight and obesity in these populations. Three hundred and ninety families joined the program, including 782 individuals with ages above 19 years, 360 (46,0%) of them were men and 422 (54,0%) were women. The prevalences of obesity among men from urban and rural areas were 5.6% and 5.8%, respectively. Concerning overweight, this incidence was about 25% for both regions, and the percentages increased with age. The prevalences ofobesity among men and women were, respectively, 5.6% and 21.6% (p<0,05). Among women the ocurrence of obesity increased slightly with age, and the prevalences were 19.8% in urban areas and 23.4% in rural areas. Therefore, as the evaluated population lives in extreme poverty, the excess of weight, which hits mainly the women, has a complex etiology and needs to be better studied.