Prevalence and associated factors of overweight and obesity in reproductive-aged women in Rasht (2015)

Obesity is one of the most common nutritional problems. Understanding the prevalence of overweight and obesity in women is essential to planning and prioritizing of health problems. The current study aimed to broaden our understanding of the prevalence and related factors of overweight and obesity in the women at ages of pregnancy in Rasht, Iran, in 2015.
The present cross-sectional study was designed to investigate the prevalence of overweight and obesity in women aged 20 to 50 years living in Rasht. The multiple-stage sampling method was used to recruit the participants. All participants provided informed consent before entering the study. Body mass indexes of >30 kg/m2 and >25 kg/m2 were considered obese and overweight, respectively. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, chi-square test and correlation coefficients.
The mean age of participants in the study was 19.28 (SD= 6.99). About 2.9% and 24.8% of study participants were obese and overweight, respectively. Also, the relationship between prevalence of overweight, mobility status, age and income was statistically significant.
Our study found that overweight and obesity is a major public health problem among women living in the region and, thus, more attention should be given to reproductive-aged women with increased obesity-related measures.