IOSR Journal of Nursing and Health Science (IOSR-JNHS) e-ISSN: 2320–1959.p- ISSN: 2320–1940 Volume 3, Issue 5 Ver. III (Sep.-Oct. 2014), PP 24-28 www.iosrjournals.org www.iosrjournals.org 24 | Page Obesity and Its Risk Factors in Urban and Rural Females of Pune Manisha A. Rathi* 1 , Dr. Ali Irani 2 , Dr. V. A. Kakrani 3 1 Dr. D. Y. Patil College of Physiotherapy, Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune 2 Department of Sports and Physiotherapy, Balabhai Nanawati Hospital, Ville Parle(W), Mumbai 3 Dr. D. Y. Patil Medical College, Hospital and Research Center, Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune Abstract: Background of the study: Obesity is becoming a alarming metabolic disorders in global scenario. Its prevalence is increasing day by day even in developing countries. Urban population is more vulnerable to this epidemic specially females. Objectives of this study was to compare obesity and its risk factors in urban and rural females. Methodology: In this cross sectional study, total 1063 females (545 rural and 518 urban) were analyzed. Height, weight, waist Circumference, Hip circumference, W:H ratio, Educational status, Socioeconomic status, Skinfold were measured. Body mass Index (BMI), Percentage of body fat were calculated using the formula. BMI classification, Cut off for Waist Circumference were considered as per guidelines given for Asian Indian Adults. Statistical significance was considered at 95 % Confidence Interval. Result: Out Of 1063 women randomly selected, 16.41 % of urban and 10.83% of rural females were classified as overweight and 40.54 % of urban and 22.75% of rural females were obese. Weight, BMI, Percentage of Body fat, Waist Circumference and Waist:Hip Ratio (WHR) was significantly higher (p,0.001) in Urban females as compare to Rural females. Conclusions: The higher prevalence of overweight and obesity was found in Urban women as compared to Rural women. Urban females were more central obese than Rural females. Key Words: Obesity, BMI, Body fat percentage, Urban and Rural Females. I. Introduction: Obesity is a chronic, multifactorial disease with complex psychological, environmental (social and cultural), genetic, physiologic, metabolic and behavioral causes and consequence (American Obesity Association). Obesity has reached at an alarming rate (Flegal et al. 2002, Hedley et al. 2004) 1, 2 and prevalent among all the groups of adults especially in women in both developed and developing countries (Wang and Hoy, 2004; Flegal, 2005). 3,4 Environmental and behavioral changes brought about by economic development, modernization and urbanization have been linked to the rise in global obesity 5 . Obesity epidemic has important public health consequences because obesity is associated with numerous disease and disability (Visscher and Seidell, 2001) 6 and shorter life expectancy (Olshansky et al 2005) 7 . Females experience one or several life changing experiences that makes them vulnerable to weight gain. Pregnancy and post delivery period leads to significant amount of fat mass retention (Rathi M. and Palekar T 2012) 8 , Changes in social roles such as entering or leaving marriage influence physical characteristics such as body weight. Females who were unmarried at the baseline and married at follow-up showed greater weight change than those who were married at both times. 9 Zargar AH at el (2004) stated that Obesity is a growing problem even in developing regions like India and is more common in females and in urban population. 10 Shah Ebrahim, et al ( 2010) studied that Migration into urban areas is associated with increases in obesity, which drive other risk factor changes. 11 Whereas Christie A et at (2012) observed in a study done in united states that prevalence of obesity in rural adults was 39.6% and urban adults was 33.4%. 12 This is in contrast to the findings observed in India. A study done by Kaur et al (2013) found that Prevalence of Overweight is 75.33% in Urban and 67.99% in Rural women. 13 Long-term weight loss strategies are of limited success 14 , and the costs associated with obesity treatment are high 15 . Obesity prevention is therefore an important public health priority and for this it is necessary to know the weight status of urban and rural females Hence this study aimed to describe and compare the body compositions of the females of childbearing age from urban and rural areas. II. Methodology In this Cross sectional study, a Total 1063 females were included out of which 545 were from rural area and 518 from urban area of Pune. Ethical approval was taken from Institutional Ethical Committee. Data was collected from January 2013- March 2014. Females from the age group of 20 – 45 were included in the