Every fifth person in the 15-49 years age group in Uttar Pradesh is overweight or obese. A gender-wise assessment shows that 21.3 per cent women and 18.5 per cent men belong to the overweight/obese category. The data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) four and five indicate a five-percentage point rise on the count. According to the health experts, against 16.5 per cent of the people falling in the category in NFHS-4, the number has gone up to 19 per cent for women and 6 per cent for men in NFHS-5. Nearly 23 per cent of men and 24 per cent of women were found to have a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or more -- which is a 4 per cent increase for both genders over 2015-16.
Healthy body weight is calculated on the basis of body mass index (BMI) formula. Anyone with a BMI of more than 30 is considered obese and a person with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is deemed overweight. Stating that once obesity was considered a problem of the wealthy countries, experts admitted that it was shifting towards countries where a majority of the population falls in low- and middle-income groups. Overall, the worldwide prevalence of obesity has nearly tripled over the past four decades. Dubbing it as a rising nutrition concern, doctors said that excessive body weight was an open invitation to diseases.
