Seasonal BMI Changes of Rural Women Living in Anatolia

Abstract

Today, obesity is one of the most evident public health problems in many parts of the World and it is more common among women. Several factors are affecting women's obesity, among these short term weight fluctuations, either gain or loss, cause severe health disorders, particularly in rural areas where seasonal activity differs significantly throughout the year. Since this case has not been studied in detail, our research focused on prevalence and probable causes of seasonal rural obesity among women in two rural areas of Turkey. The study was undertaken with 100 participants. One-way ANOVA and one-way repeated ANOVA tests were utilized for categorical, continuous and repeated variables as study contains groups with more than one and repeated variables. Overweight is more common in the 18-30 years and 50+ years groups, whereas the absence of obesity, except during winter of 2010 in the 50+ years of age group, is most probably due to the widespread occurrence of diabetes for this age group. The highest BMI values for all groups, which were 25.2 +/- 3.39 for 2009 and 26.1 +/- 3.40 for 2010, were determined in winter, because of minimum physical activity, while summer BMIs were 24.1 +/- 3.39 in 2009 and 25.1 +/- 3.35 in 2010. This decrease was most probably due to intense agricultural field work in both regions. The majority of the women claimed that their weight is balanced in summer but results revealed that participants did not lose all the weight which was gained during winter months although BMI showed a significant fall from spring to autumn.