Research Article High Prevalence of Overweight/Obesity in Urban Sri Lanka: Findings from the Colombo Urban Study Noel Somasundaram, 1 Ishara Ranathunga , 1 Kavinga Gunawardana, 1 Muneer Ahamed, 2 Dileepa Ediriweera, 3 C. N. Antonypillai, 2 and Nishan Kalupahana 4 1 Diabetes and Endocrine Unit, National Hospital of Sri Lanka, Colombo, Sri Lanka 2 Diabetes and Endocrine Unit, Teaching Hospital, Kandy, Sri Lanka 3 Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka 4 Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka Correspondence should be addressed to Ishara Ranathunga; ish_75@yahoo.com Received 23 April 2019; Revised 19 September 2019; Accepted 15 October 2019; Published 22 November 2019 Academic Editor: Andrea Scaramuzza Copyright © 2019 Noel Somasundaram et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. South Asian countries face a double burden of malnutrition characterized by high prevalence of underweight, overweight, and obesity. Understanding the distribution of this public health problem is important to tailor targeted interventions for communities. The objective of the current study was to find out the prevalence of obesity in urban Sri Lanka and to identify sociodemographic factors associated with it. Methods. Adult males and females residing in an urban government division of the Colombo District in Sri Lanka were included in this study (Colombo Urban Study). Stratified simple random sampling was used to select a sample of 463 from the total population. Sociodemographic data using an interviewer- administered questionnaire, anthropometric measurements, and serum samples were obtained for investigations. Results. When the global BMI cutoffs were applied, the community prevalences of underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obesity were 7.7%, 39.6%, 37.0%, and 15.8%, respectively. When the Asian BMI cutoffs were applied, the respective prevalences were 7.7%, 26.8%, 34.3%, and 31.2%. The community prevalence for abdominal obesity was 58.1% when using Asian cutoffs. Females had a higher prevalence of both obesity and abdominal obesity. There was an ethnic difference in obesity rates with Moors having the highest rates (65.5%) followed by Sinhalese (52.3%) and Tamils (40.2%). The highest obesity prevalence was observed in the most educated group. Multiple regression analysis showed that high BMI was associated with female gender and family history of hypertension. Serum LDL negatively associated with BMI while the strength of this relationship was impacted by serum HBA1c levels. Finally, serum triglyceride level showed positive association with BMI, and the effect was more marked in Moors compared to Sinhalese. Conclusion. Two-thirds of adults in the studied urban population were overweight or obese. This highlights the urgent need for interventions to curb this epidemic. The gender, ethnic differences in obesity, its associations with educational status, and the interactions with metabolic comorbidities indicate that these interventions may need to be targeted towards different groups in the population. 1. Background Global obesity prevalence has increased from 3·(2%) in 1975 to 10·(8%) in 2014 in men and from 6·(4%) to 14·(9%) in women [1]. While obesity was considered to be a major pub- lic health issue in the developed world [2], recent data from different countries show that there is a progressive increase in obesity rates within each country [1]. When considering developing countries, although infectious diseases and undernutrition are still major health concerns, the preva- lences of obesity and related issues are on the rise [3]. Sri Lanka, which is a South Asian country with a population of 20 million, has been experiencing rapid and sometimes unplanned urbanization and infrastructure developments over the recent past with an estimated 30% of the popula- tion now living in urban and suburban areas [4]. There Hindawi Journal of Diabetes Research Volume 2019, Article ID 2046428, 9 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/2046428