Prevalence of Obesity in Qataris Attending Primary Health Care Centers in Doha, 2008

Abstract

Obesity is a chronic disease prevalent in both developed and developing countries and as a risk factor for several other chronic diseases it should be regarded as one of the greatest neglected public health problems with significant future implications to healthcare systems. With the aim of assessing the prevalence of overweight and obesity in patients attending Primary Health Care Centers (PHC) and identifying important causal factors a cross-sectional study using a questionnaire was made of 217 randomly selected adults >18 years attending five Qatari PHCs between February and April 2008. The overall prevalence of obesity in adult Qataris was 47.9% and prevalence of overweight was 33.6%; higher in males than females (17.9%, 15.6%), while the prevalence of obesity was higher in females (49.5% cf. 46%). Obesity was significantly higher among those on a high caloric diet, with physical inactivity and a family history of obesity (p = 0.000). Obesity increased with age, the highest prevalence being in the group above 48 years, (p = 0.0002). All the chronic diseases were significantly higher among the obese; e.g. diabetes (p = 0.02) and hypertension (p = 0.037). It is concluded that obesity is highly prevalent in the community and is caused by several social and lifestyle factors. The health authority should establish a program to prevent and control obesity, an important factor linked to the occurrence of several chronic non-communicable diseases.