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Clinical Trial
. 2017 Sep 14;12(9):e0183934.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0183934. eCollection 2017.

Prevalence of overweight, obesity, abdominal obesity and obesity-related risk factors in southern China

Lihua Hu  1 , Xiao Huang  1 , Chunjiao You  1 , Juxiang Li  1 , Kui Hong  1 , Ping Li  1 , Yanqing Wu  1 , Qinhua Wu  1 , Zengwu Wang  2 , Runlin Gao  3 , Huihui Bao  1 , Xiaoshu Cheng  1
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Prevalence of overweight, obesity, abdominal obesity and obesity-related risk factors in southern China

Lihua Hu et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assess the prevalence of overweight/obesity, abdominal obesity and obesity-related risk factors in southern China.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 15,364 participants aged 15 years and older was conducted from November 2013 to August 2014 in Jiangxi Province, China, using questionnaire forms and physical measurements. The physical measurements included body height, weight, waist circumference (WC), body fat percentage (BFP) and visceral adipose index (VAI). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the risk factors for overweight/obesity and abdominal obesity.

Results: The prevalence of overweight was 25.8% (25.9% in males and 25.7% in females), while that of obesity was 7.9% (8.4% in males and 7.6% in females). The prevalence of abdominal obesity was 10.2% (8.6% in males and 11.3% in females). The prevalence of overweight/obesity was 37.1% in urban residents and 30.2% in rural residents, and this difference was significant (P < 0.001). Urban residents had a significantly higher prevalence of abdominal obesity than rural residents (11.6% vs 8.7%, P < 0.001). Among the participants with an underweight/normal body mass index (BMI), 1.3% still had abdominal obesity, 16.1% had a high BFP and 1.0% had a high VAI. Moreover, among obese participants, 9.7% had a low /normal WC, 0.8% had a normal BFP and 15.9% had a normal VAI. Meanwhile, the partial correlation analysis indicated that the correlation coefficients between VAI and BMI, VAI and WC, and BMI and WC were 0.700, 0.666, and 0.721, respectively. A multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that being female and having a high BFP and a high VAI were significantly associated with an increased risk of overweight/obesity and abdominal obesity. In addition, living in an urban area and older age correlated with overweight/obesity.

Conclusion: This study revealed that obesity and abdominal obesity, which differed by gender and age, are epidemic in southern China. Moreover, there was a very high, significant, positive correlation between WC, BMI and VAI. However, further studies are needed to explore which indicator of body fat could be used as the best marker to indirectly reflect cardiometabolic risk.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Prevalence of overweight/obesity and elevated WC in urban and rural areas.
Note: BMI = body mass index, WC = waist circumference.
Fig 2
Fig 2. The distribution of BMI in different WC, VAI and BFP.
Note: BMI = body mass index, WC = waist circumference, BFP = body fat percentage, VAI = visceral adipose index.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program in the Twelfth Five-year Plan (no. 2011BAI11B01 and 2014ZX09303305) from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and National Natural Science Foundation of China (81260023, and 81560051). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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