Objective: To understand the prevalence of overweight and its relationship with hyperglycaemia in adults in rural Deqing county, China.
Method: A cross-sectional study was carried out in four rural communities randomly sampled from Deqing county, Zhejiang province, China. A total of 5840 subjects aged 18 to 64 years participated in this study. General demographics and items related to health were collected and the length, weight, fast glucose etc of subjects were measured. EpiData 3.1 (Chinese version) was used to manage the data and SPSS 16.0 was used for statistical analysis.
Result: The average BMI was 22.7 +/- 11.6 kg/m2, the crude prevalence of overweight was 25.1% (of obesity was 3.8%) and the age-gender-standardized prevalence of overweight was 21.8%. There was a significantly higher trend of overweight with age regardless of gender, especially after 35 years old (chi2(Trend) = 5.61, P = 0.018 for men; chi2(Trend) = 50.96, P < 0.001 for women; chi2(Trend) = 14.05, P < 0.001). The risk of impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and diabetes mellitus (DM) (adjusted OR = 1.8, 95% CI 1.34 - 2.37 and 3.7, 95% CI 2.42 -5.65, respectively) in subjects with overweight was significantly higher than that in subjects without overweight/obesity in the multinomial Logistic model; and the risk of IFG and DM was increased 14% and 24% respectively with the increase of one BMI unit (adjusted OR = 1.14, 95% CI: 1.10 - 1.20 and adjusted OR = 1.24, 95% CI 1.16 - 1.32, respectively).
Conclusion: The prevalence of overweight in adults aged 18 to 64 years old was high in rural Deqing, which was significantly associated with IFG and DM.