Prevalence of Obesity and Trends of Body Mass Index in Azad Jammu and Kashmir

Abstract

In the present study an attempt has been made to figure out the remarkable factors that were responsible for higher body mass index (BMI) and obesity as well as to observe the existing trends of BMI in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The factors were age, sex, diabetes, blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose and random glucose. The statistical analysis with both classical and Bayesian methodologies was carried out for the investigation of significant risk factors. The results showed that with the increase in age the BMI also increases i.e., respondents of age group > 60 have the highest percentage of 82.76% for BMI. Moreover, it was found that except sex and blood pressure all other factors had significant association with BMI. Additionally, four factors namely, age, diabetes, total cholesterol and triglycerides were selected for the development of the parsimonious model of BMI based on generalized linear model, step wise regression and Bayesian model averaging.