Overweight and obesity among internal migrants in India.

Abstract

Migration, chiefly from rural to urban areas has been linked to precursor conditions of cardiovascular diseases. We estimated the odds of overweight/obesity ( BMI >=25 kg/m2) associated with different patterns of internal migration, using data from the National Family Health Survey 3, a cross-sectional survey that covered 29 states of India in 2005/06. A total of 56,498 non-pregnant women, aged 15 to 49 years, and 42,190 men, aged 15 to 54 years, with BMI >18.5 kg/m2 were included in the final analysis. Odds ratios (ORs) for overweight/ obesity were computed for different groups of migrants after adjusting for age, socioeconomic status and parity using binomial logistic regression models. All analyses were performed separately for men and women and weighted using national sampling weights. Rural to urban migrant women but not men, had higher odds of being overweight/obese (adjusted OR (AOR): 1.50, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.36-1.65) compared to non-migrant rural residents. Increased odds were also noted among women migrating from one urban area to another, compared to non-migrant urban women ( A OR: 1.10, 95% CI: 1.02-1.19). Women migrating from urban to rural areas, however had decreased odds (AOR: 0.75, 95% CI: 0.67-0.83) of overweight/ obesity. Thus, apart from confirming rural to urban migration as a risk factor for overweight, this study finds that other patterns of migration are also associated with overweight/obesity.