Prevalence of Obesity and Hypertension Among the Zou Mothers of Manipur, Northeast India

Abstract

The present study was conducted to find out the prevalence of overweight/obesity and hypertension among the Zou mothers, a tribal population of Manipur state. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 533 mothers who are within their reproductive stages of age 17–49 years following house-to-house visits. The subjects were divided into different age groups to examine the influence of age on their health condition. The finding shows that the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure increases along with advancing age group. The cut-off value of BMI for both categories of Asian population and WHO international shows that there is a positive association between different BMI categories and blood pressure (BP). Minimum BP was found among underweight and maximum among obese category. BP was found the lowest among the younger age group and the highest among the menopausal mothers. Although the magnitude of correlation differed, there was a significant positive correlation among BMI, systolic, diastolic, and age. The effect of changing socioeconomic environment and sedentary lifestyle in addition to inactive physical activities could be the main reasons for prevalence of overweight and obesity in study population.