RESEARCH ARTICLE


Predictors of Overweight and Obesity Among Women in Ghana



Mattah Precious Agbeko1, *, Kumi-Kyereme Akwasi2, Druye Adjei Andrews3, Osei Berchie Gifty3
1 Academic Planning and Quality Assurance (DAPQA), University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
2 Department of Population and Health, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
3 Department of Nursing, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2013
Volume: 5
First Page: 72
Last Page: 81
Publisher Id: TOOBESJ-5-72
DOI: 10.2174/1876823701305010072

Article History:

Received Date: 15/03/2013
Revision Received Date: 04/07/2013
Acceptance Date: 05/07/2013
Electronic publication date: 28/8/2013
Collection year: 2013

© 2013 Agbeko et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Academic Planning and Quality Assurance (DAPQA), University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana; Tel: +233 020 3333993; E-mails: pmattah@yahoo.com, pmattah@ucc.edu.gh


Abstract

The global prevalence of overweight and obesity has more than doubled between 1980 and 2008. Using the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey data, this study explored the association between biological, behavioural and socio-cultural factors and overweight and obesity among women in Ghana. The bivariate descriptive analysis and the binary logistic regression estimation technique were used to analyse the data. From the results, it was observed that there were significant associations between some of the factors and overweight and obesity. For instance, age was found to have a positive significant association with overweight and obesity for all categories while having four or more children was significant but negatively associated with overweight and obesity. The introduction of socio-cultural factors in the model did not affect the direction of association between age and overweight and obesity even though the strength of association reduced. Amongst the socio-cultural factors introduced in the model, all categories of education and wealth status had a positive significant association with overweight and obesity. The introduction of behavioural factors in the model did not change the nature of predictors of overweight and obesity. Alcohol consumption, contraceptive use and exposure to television were positively associated with overweight and obesity. The results underscore the relevance of biological, socio-cultural and behavioural factors in the planning and implementation of intervention strategies to address overweight and obesity among women in Ghana.

Keywords: Behavioural, Biological, Obesity, Overweight, Predictors, Socio-cultural, Women.