Overweight and obesity in adults: Contributions from a geospatial analysis

Abstract

Objective: To carry out a geospatial analysis of the behavior of overweight and obesity based on the "National Survey of Nutritional Situation" of 2015. Methodology: A geospatial analysis model of transversal spatial distribution is applied from the Survey, on a departmental scale. To achieve this, the prevalence of overweight, class I, II and III obesity according to body mass index and abdominal obesity in women and men according to waist circumference are calculated. Geographic information system tools, such as the Global Moran Index, Local Spatial Autocorrelation Index (LISA), and G*Getis Ord, are used to determine patterns of high clustering and low prevalence. Results: The local clusters illustrated on the maps demonstrate that their residuals are normally distributed in space. A randomness is observed in the spatial autocorrelation model. High-high LISA clusters occur in ten departments with these conditions (La Guajira, Magdalena, Atlántico, Sucre, Cesar, Norte de Santander, Córdoba, Antioquia, Chocó and Cundinamarca). According to the body mass index, 38.5 per 100 inhabitants are overweight; 20.9 per 100 inhabitants are obese, and according to waist circumference, 53.2 per 100 inhabitants have abdominal obesity. Conclusions: The spatial distribution of overweight and obesity may be conditioned by the sociodemographic variables treated in the study. The country has the challenge of continuing to implement population actions in public health to reduce these conditions.