A Comparative Assessment of Obesity and Its Association with Reproductive Outcomes among Women in Four Selected South-Asian Countries

Jitendra Gouda, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Chander Shekhar, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

This paper estimates the prevalence of overweight/obesity and its association with reproductive outcomes among women in four selected South-Asian countries. For this study, India, Nepal, Maldives and Bangladesh demographic health survey (DHS) datasets are used. The reproductive outcomes among overweight or obese women were assessed during their pregnancy, at child birth and on secondary infertility. Bivariate and Multivariate analysis were carried out to estimate the adverse reproductive outcomes among overweight/obese women. This study evidently found that considerable proportions of women in Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Maldives are either overweight or obese. However, Maldives records the highest (45 percent) proportion of overweight or obese women. Furthermore, as the BMI level shifts towards obese condition, women are more likely to have stillbirth, caesarean delivery, very large and overweight child at birth in all the selected countries. Besides, overweight/obese women were more secondary infertile than their counterpart normal BMI women in all the studied countries.