Brief report Prevalence of overweight and obesity in young adults aged 20–40 years in North India (Kashmir Valley) Shariq Rashid Masoodi, Abdul Ahad Wani, Arshad Iqbal Wani, Mir Iftikhar Bashir, Bashir Ahmad Laway, Abdul Hamid Zargar * Department of Endocrinology, Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar, Kashmir 190011, India 1. Introduction In India, obesity is emerging as an important health problem, paradoxically co-existing with significant under nutrition prevailing in different sections of the population [1]. Available data on prevalence of obesity in India from different published studies suggest that the prevalence varies from 10% to 50%, depending on the methodology and the cut-off points used for defining obesity [2,3]. We reported an overall obesity pre- valence of 15.01% in Kashmiri subjects, aged 40 years or more; the prevalence of obesity in males was 7.01% and in females 23.69% [4]. Recently, we conducted a survey to know the prevalence of diabetes and obesity in young-adult (20–40 years) men and non-pregnant-women in Kashmir Valley; revealing an overall, age-adjusted diabetes prevalence of 2.4% with a high prevalence of impaired fasting glycemia (IFG) [5]. In this report we discuss the prevalence of obesity in young Kashmiri adults, and the relationship of overweight–obesity with abnormalities of glucose tolerance. 2. Methods A multistage sampling procedure was adopted to select the desired population; details of the sampling procedure and methods are described earlier [5]. The study had a power of atleast 95% with allowed relative error of 1%. Demographic and anthropometric parameters like age, weight, height, and diabetes research and clinical practice 87 (2010) e 4– e 6 article info Article history: Received 15 April 2009 Received in revised form 2 July 2009 Accepted 5 November 2009 Published on line 14 December 2009 Keywords: Diabetes mellitus Kashmir Obesity Overweight Prevalence Young age abstract We conducted a survey to know the prevalence of diabetes and obesity in young-adult (20–40 years) men and non-pregnant-women in Kashmir Valley (India); prevalence of latter is presented here. The age-adjusted prevalence of overweight–obesity was 16.3% and that of obesity 5.1%; the relationship of overweight–obesity with glucose intolerance is discussed. # 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: P.O. Box 1098, GPO Srinagar 190001, India. Tel.: +91 9419003209; fax: +91 1942403470. E-mail address: zargarah123@gmail.com (A.H. Zargar). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/diabres 0168-8227/$ – see front matter # 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.diabres.2009.11.004