Unusually high prevalence rates of obesity in four Mexican rural communities

Objective: To establish the nutritional status of previously studied rural populations. Design and subjects: A total of 139 households with 245 males and 301 femal es from four relatively isolated Mexican rural communities were randomly se lected to be surveyed in 1996. Results: Underweight was not a problem in either children or adults. In chi ldren <5 y only three (4.2%) were stunted but the age- and sex-specific dis tributions of body mass index (BMI) in children showed 17% of boys and 19% of girls exceeded the proposed International Obesity Task Force limits for classifying the overweight. Triceps skinfold values were similar to NHANESI values for white USA children. Of the adult men 42% were overweight (BMI 2 5.0-29.9) and 9% obese; 40% of adult women were overweight and a further 33 % obese. Adjusting BMI values with corrected total heights by relating them to measured knee height reduced the BMI of women >50 y by 2.0 units; the m ale data were essentially unchanged. The prevalence of abdominal obesity in women, based on waist measurements and WHO cut-off points was high with 25 % of women having elevated values despite a normal BMI; 43% of the overweig ht women had substantial increases in waist measurements, indicative of hig h risk, as did 91% of obese women. The men's waist measurements were greate r in relation to both BMI and body fat but the prevalence of values in exce ss of the suggested sex-specific WHO limits was less than half that of wome n. Conclusions: The high prevalence of overweight and obesity is now evident i n poor and relatively isolated rural communities of Mexico.