High prevalence of obesity in Curacao: data from an interview survey stratified for socio-economic status - abstract

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to report the prevalence of obesity and abdominal fatness in different socioeconomic classes in Curacao. In 1993/1994 a health interview survey (the Curacao Health Study) was carried out among a random sample (n = 2248, response rate = 85 percent) of the adult non-institutionalized population of Curacao. We analyzed the association between body mass index (BMI) and socioeconomic status (SES) as well as the relationship between waist-hip ratio (WHR) and SES by logistic regression models for men and women separately. The overall prevalence of obesity among women peaked at age 46 to 55 years (OR 4.195 percent CI 2.6 - 6.6) and between 56 to 65 (OR 1.7 95 percent CI 1.0 - 3.1) years in men. Women of lower SES are approximately twice as much at risk of being obesed compared to women of higher SES (OR 2.4 95 percent CI 1.7 - 3.4) for the low SES group. The percentage of participants with an at risk WHR (cut off point 0.80 for women and 0.95 for men) is more than three times higher among women than among men (62.2 percent versus 20.4 percent). WHR increased significantly with age among both genders. Compared to women of higher SES, the lower SES women have a three times higher risk of a WHR exceeding th cut off point (OR 3.0 95 percent CI 2.0 - 4.5). The overall prevalence of obesity was much higher than in Spain, Brazil and the Netherlands. The high prevalence of obesity in Curacao justifies action and research on the prevention of obesity in Curacao. (AU)