Prevalence of Obesity and Impact of Menopause on It among Women of Rural Area of Punjab, Pakistan

Obesity is one of the major health public problems and it not only leads to serious and chronic diseases but also causes poor mental health. Although it is affected by number of factors including food, gender, socioeconomic status, and genetics but menopause is important in postmenopausal women. Therefore, this study was set to assess the prevalence of obesity and impact of menopause on it among women. This cross-sectional descriptive study was completed in about 3 months from August 2020 to October 2020 in a rural area of Punjab, Pakistan. 189 women were enrolled in our study according to agreed criteria of exclusion and inclusion. Women whose age was above 28 years and up to 58 years and who either had regular menstrual cycles or had cessation of menses from at least one last year were selected for study while women who either had irregular menstrual cycles or who were not willing to participate were excluded from study. Collection of data was accomplished via one self-structured proforma and WHO Classification of Weight Status which is based on BMI was also applied. Data analysis was carried out by using SPSS version 25. Multiple statistical tests including Chi-square test, Independent Sample t-test, and One-Way ANOVA test were used to assess the study variables. Overall, our current study shows high prevalence (29.6%) of obesity among women, however, mean of BMI value was higher among postmenopausal women (27.53 SD of ±4.28) in comparison with premenopausal women (25.44 with SD of ±4.05) which means that postmenopausal women had higher risk of development of Obesity in comparison with premenopausal women. The association between obesity and menopause was statistically significant (p=0.0001). The difference of BMI mean value between premenopausal women and postmenopausal women was significant statistically (p=0.001). Significance difference was also noted in BMI mean value of across four grades of weight status (p=0.000). In a nutshell, overall prevalence of obesity is high among women and its even higher among postmenopausal women in comparison to premenopausal women which means menopause increases the obesity among women after menopause but process of development is so far vague.