Obesity Determinants and the Policy Implications for the Prevention and Management of Obesity in Indonesia

Abstract

The prevalence of overweight and obesity in adult groups in Indonesia experience a surge compared to the previous year. The obesity determinants are classified as complex, and they can differ between regions. Appropriate policies, in accordance with determinants, play an important role in efforts to reduce the prevalence of obesity. This study aimed to identify the determinant factors for overweight and obesity in Indonesia and policies that supported a decrease in the prevalence of overweight and obesity based on the significant determinant factors found. The data sources were from the Ministry of Health, Statistics Indonesia, and the Ministry of Agriculture for 33 provinces in Indonesia. The literature regarding policy analysis was sought on Google, the IPB University repositories, related ministry websites, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and MEDLINE. The multiple regression analysis was performed to identify the determinants of overweight and obesity while the Five-E approach was used to analyze related policies. The simple regression analysis showed that the consumption of animal source foods (p=0.001), oil and fat consumption (p=0.006), the proportion of the population with low physical activity (p=0.01), the average study duration (p=0.001), total per capita expenditure (p=0.000), food (p=0.001) and non-food expenditure (p=0.000), and share of food expenditure (p=0.005) had significant effects on the proportion of adulthood overweight and obesity. Only oil and fat consumption (p=0.02) still had a significant positive effect on the proportion of overweight and obesity after performing the multiple regression analysis. Vegetable consumption (p=0.03) also had a significant negative effect on the proportion of overweight and obesity after being included in the multiple regression model. The Healthy Community Movement (HMC or known as GERMAS in Indonesia) policy and the inclusion of fat content into food labels are policies for preventing and managing overweight, which are conducted related to consumption of vegetables, fat, and oil. The effectiveness of the policy is still not optimal even though the policy is efficient. An improvement of the policy implementation needs to be conducted by optimizing the implementation of follow-up monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of program policies.