Comparison of Anthropometry Measures between Urban and Rural Aging Cohort in India

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundAnthropometric characteristics of individuals and populations are simple and strong predictors of nutrition, future ill health, functional impairment and mortality (WHO‐TRS 854). Our objective was to observe differences in various anthropometric measurements between urban and rural aging participants in India. The Tata Longitudinal Study of Aging (TLSA) and Srinivaspura Aging Neurosenescence and COGnition (SANSCOG) study are ongoing, large‐scale, prospective, population‐based cohort studies in urban and rural India respectively (Sundarakumar J et.al 2020).MethodA cross‐sectional comparative study that included 1089 urban and 4913 rural participants of both the genders aged 45 years and above were selected from ongoing TLSA and SANSCOG studies. Anthropometric measurements such as Height, Weight, Waist circumference, Hip circumference, Waist‐Hip ratio, Waist‐Height ratio, Body fat and Visceral fat of both the groups were obtained through a structured clinical protocol by trained physicians and nurses and Tanita body composition analyzer. Chi‐square and Mann Whitney U tests were used to analyze the results as the data was not normally distributed.ResultUrban participants were older and had more years of education. The proportion of males and females did not differ between both cohorts as shown in Table 1. Mann‐Whitney U test was conducted to determine whether there was a difference in various anthropometric measures between Urban and Rural cohorts. The results indicate significant difference between the groups as shown in Table 2.ConclusionUrban participants were observed to have comparatively high range of anthropometric measurements compared to rural participants. This difference may be because mean age of rural cohort was less where they mostly engage in more physically demanding occupation such as farming while their urban counterparts were elder and may engage in sedentary occupation.