Hyderabad: Institutional studies carried out in south India have registered that overall cases of obesity and its prevalence was between 22.8 per cent to 34.8 per cent among women and 23.4 per cent in men.
The institutional study conducted in Tamil Nadu has shown the overall prevalence of obesity in adults in South India at 52.4 per cent.
The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) has shown the prevalence as 15 per cent in south India, where Kerala was the highest at 34 per cent, Tamil Nadu at 24.4 per cent, united Andhra Pradesh at 22.7 per cent and Karnataka at 17.3 per cent.
The study has also taken into account the walk-in cases in obesity clinics of hospitals and the surgical interventions carried out in institutional set-ups. The hospital data from Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu were compiled together and evaluated.
Senior bariatric and laparoscopic surgeon at Apollo Hospitals Dr Venugopal Pareek explained, “Obesity has significant risk factors associated with it like widely prevalent diabetes mellitus, hypertension, breast cancer and dyslipidemia disorders. In south India, due to the intake of rice and a carbohydrate diet the epidemic and its allied health disasters are a concern. This is now aggravated due to long working hours, continued sitting and also lifestyle patterns are adding to the burden.”
The obesity noted is usually in the truncal and abdomen region. The diet is a major factor with high carbohydrates; total fat and low in fibre food are found to cause hyper insulinemia and insulin resistance.
A good adherence to lifestyle practice with sustained efforts to lose weight has to be followed. The suggestions are minimum weight loss of one kg per month and a weight loss which will give a less than 2 per cent baseline weight in the first month and less than 3 per cent in the second month helps to maintain a standard reduction of less than 5 per cent in the waist line in the long term.
Physical activity with walking for about 15 to 20 minutes daily is advised for beginners and it can be increased to 60 minutes of physical activity later.
A total of 300 minutes of weekly moderate physical activity must be carried out.
This is because it was found that those between 35 to 40 years of age are leading a sedentary lifestyle especially women and that is a contributing factor for weight gain. Lack of physical exercise is due to harsh climate, unavailable space and also social and security reasons in women.
However, there is a need to exercise at home or join a nearby gym and follow outdoor activity if the weather is suitable.
The institutional study has found an increase in surgical interventions, which show that those who have failed to lose weight have opted for surgery.
There is a need for more preventive interventions to reduce the burden.
