Marital status and educational level associated to obesity in Greek adults: data from the National Epidemiological Survey

BMC Public Health

Research Article

George Vlahavas¹  Daphne Kaklamanou²  Efthymios Kapantais²  Themistoklis Tzotzas²  Maria Hassapidou³  Sousana K Papadopoulou³ 

[1] Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, ATEI, Thessaloniki, Greece;Hellenic Medical Association for Obesity (HMAO), Athens, Greece;Hellenic Medical Association for Obesity (HMAO), Athens, Greece;Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, ATEI, Thessaloniki, Greece;

关键词: Obesity;    Marital Status;    Educational Level;    Abdominal Obesity;    Marriage Market;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-10-732

 received in 2010-02-10, accepted in 2010-11-26,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundObesity is an important public health issue and its prevalence is reaching epidemic proportions in both developed and developing countries. The aim of the present study was to determine associations of overweight (OW), obesity (OB) and abdominal obesity (AO) with marital status and educational level in Greek adults of both genders based on data from the National Epidemiological Survey on the prevalence of obesity.MethodsThe selection was conducted by stratified sampling through household family members of Greek children attending school during 2003. A total of 17,341 Greek men and women aged from 20 to 70 years participated in the survey and had anthropometric measurements (height, weight, and waist circumference) for the calculation of prevalence of OW, OB and AO. WHO cut-offs were used to define overweight and obesity categories. Waist circumference of more than 102 cm in men and 88 cm in women defined AO. Marital status and educational level were recorded using a specially designed questionnaire and were classified into 4 categories.ResultsThe overall prevalence of OB was 22.3% (25.8% in men, 18.4% in women), that of OW 35.2% (41.0% in men, 29.8% in women) and that of AO 26.4% in men and 35.9% in women. Ahigher risk of OB was found in married men (OR: 2.28; 95% CI: 1.85-2.81) and married women (OR: 2.31; 95% CI: 1.73-3.10) than in the respective unmarried ones. Also, a higher risk of AO was found in married men (OR: 3.40; 95% CI: 2.86-4.03) and in married women (OR: 2.40; 95% CI 2.00-2.88) compared to unmarried ones. The risk for being obese was lower among educated women (primary school, OR: 0.76; 95% CI: 0.60-0.96, high school, OR: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.46-0.74 and University, OR: 0.64; 95% CI: 0.49-0.81) than among illiterates. No significant differences were found among men.ConclusionsIn Greek adults, marital status was significantly associated with obesity and abdominal obesity status in both genders while educational level was inversely associated with obesity status only in women.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Tzotzas et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.