Excess weight and obesity in a region of the interior of Portugal

Abstract

Obesity is a serious public health problem that has gained great expression in Portugal. Through several studies it has been verified that there are more and more individuals with excess and weight and obesity and that this risk factor begins to have an increasing expression at younger ages. Our study aims to determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the adult population of the district of Castelo Branco through the collection of data in each county. It is a cross-sectional, analytical and observational study whose sample collection took place in all municipalities in the district of Castelo Branco, totalling a sample of 11316 individuals, of whom 55.6% belonged to the female gender (n = 6292) and 44, 4% to males (n = 5024), with ages between 18 and 101 years, mean of 58.12 and standard deviation of 17.96 years. Of the total number of subjects in the study sample, 44.7% were overweight, 18.8% were obese, 0.9% were underweight, while 35.6% were within their normal range. The mean body mass index (BMI) was 26.62 kg / m2, with a standard deviation of 4,11 kg / m2, where the minimum BMI was 15.57 and the maximum was 50.78 kg / m2. The results show that there is a high prevalence of overweight and obesity in the adult population of the region.