Obesity and Its Association with Reproductive Outcomes among Women in India

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

This paper is an effort to measure the prevalence of overweight/obesity among women in India. Further, it assessed the association between overweight/obese condition and reproductive outcomes among women by different characteristics in India. National Family Health Survey (NFHS), third round, 2005-06 data is used. Bivariate, Trivariate and Multivariate analysis are used as methods of analyses. The results evidently presents that, prevalence of overweight/obesity among women is increasing alarmingly over years in India. Women from affluent families, with higher education, age, parity, castes and with media exposure are more overweight or obese. Further, overweight/obese women report more stillbirths, caesarean delivery, larger than average and overweight child at birth in India. Besides, as the BMI level shifts towards obese condition women are more likely to be secondary infertile in India. With the growing prevalence of overweight/obesity among women, India has to grapple the erstwhile under-nutrition or anaemia issue with one hand and obesity with other.