J Pub Health Nutri 2021 Volume 4 Issue 3 http://www.alliedacademies.org/public-health-nutrition/ Research Article 234 Gender based comparison of anthropometric assessment across rural-urban interface of Bangalore. K. Geetha 1* , Vijayalakshmi D 1 , ShilpaYatnatti 1 , Christoph Dittrich 2 1 Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bengaluru -560065 Karnataka, India 2 Department of Human Geography, University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany Introduction Diet, composition of nutrients in the body and normal metabolic integrity is the requirement of human health and represented by nutritional status (OMICS, 2014) [1]. Normal nutritional status is managed by balance food consumption and normal utilization of nutrients. Malnutrition is caused by imbalance food intake and faulty utilization of nutrients. Anthropometric parameters are valuable instrument and nutritional indices, namely Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist to Hip Ratio (WHR), are the important and quick tools to defne individual’s nutritional status. There has been a change in the lifestyles of populations, including reduced physical activity and consumption of foods high in calories. Overweight and obesity are now replacing the more traditional public health concerns such as under-nutrition and infectious diseases as some of the most signifcant contributors to ill health [2]. Body Mass Index (BMI) has been shown to be an important predictor of risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Further, BMI has been associated with several risk factors for NCDs such as fasting blood glucose, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and abnormal waist circumference [3]. The socially constructed gender roles of men and women interact with their biological roles to afect the nutrition status of the entire family and of each gender. Because of women’s cyclical loss of iron and their childbearing, their nutrition status is particularly vulnerable to defciencies in diet, care, and health or sanitation services. Apart from this, the diference in nutrition status of men and women are attributed to several socio-cultural factors. A comparative study of nutritional status between men and women helps in understanding gender diferences in prevalence of malnutrition and associated risks for non-communicable diseases. Further this comparison, in the rural urban interface, provide outline on infuence of growing urbanization on nutritional status of adults. Hence, present investigation was undertaken to conduct the gender based analysis of nutritional status across rural-urban interface of Bangalore. Materials and Methods Selection of localities Rural-urban interface of the Bangalore (two transects) was defned as a common space for interdisciplinary research. The northern transect (N-transect) is a rectangular strip of 5 km width and 50 km length, the lower part of this transect cuts into urban Bangalore, and the upper part contains rural villages. The Southern transect (S-transect) is a polygon covering a total area of 300 km2. Rural-Urban interface was further divided into three sub regions viz., Rural, Transition and Urban areas based on the simplifed Survey Stratifcation Index (SSI) by following the logic of the Urban-Rural Index which considered distance to the city centre (VidhanaSoudha) and percentage of built-up area [4]. This classifcation of regions, formed basis for selection of 300 middle income households based on purposive random sampling, in the rural-urban interface of Bangalore. In which 479 women and 474 men were assessed for nutritional status. Diet, composition of nutrients in the body and normal metabolic integrity is the requirement of human health and represented by nutritional status. The socially constructed gender roles of men and women interact with their biological roles to afect the nutrition status. Urbanization and global change has an impact on the nutritional status of individuals. Present study focused on assessment and comparison of nutritional status of men and women across rural-urban interface of Bangalore. A total of 300 households were selected from 30 localities based on purposive random sampling which are classifed as rural, transition and urban areas. Anthropometric measurements were taken and indices were calculated. Results revealed that, underweight was more among women (13.56%) compared to men (8.88%). Obesity incidence was more in urban in case of women (15.34%), among men it was in rural (3.55%). Urban women had more percentage for increased waist hip ratio (58.7%) compared to men. However, incidence of non- communicable diseases were more among men compared to women. In conclusion, even though malnutrition was more prevalent among women, men had more incidence of non-communicable diseases. This indicates essentiality to study the other lifestyle related factors other than anthropometry, which are signifcant contributors to health status of the individual across rural- urban interface of Bangalore. Abstract Keywords: Nutritional status, BMI, Gender, Rural-urban interface. Accepted on 15 February, 2021