Obesity in urban Africa

Problem of the urban rich or urban poor?

A study has found that patterns of obesity and being overweight in urban sub-Saharan Africa are increasing and might reach epidemic proportions in the near future. The increase was higher among the poorest than among the richest. Importantly, there was an increase of 45-50% among non-educated and primary-educated women, compared with a drop of 10% among women with secondary education or higher. While the rate of change in the urban overweight/obese did not significantly differ between the poor and rich, it was substantially higher among the non-educated women than among their educated counterparts.

Due to the risks associated with obesity, the paper recommends that the problem should be tackled and prevented early, as envisioned by the WHO Global Strategy on diet, physical activity and health. The idea for the research was derived from a presentation that one of the authors made during the 2008 Oxford Health Alliance Annual Summit in Sydney.

Source: BMC Public Health, 15 December 2009 [link]

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