Excess weight in India: gender differentials, location patterns and health consequences

The phenomenon of excess weight and the associated health risks, while traditionally thought of as first-world problems, is increasingly relevant to developing countries. The number of individuals categorised as overweight or obese is rapidly increasing in this latter set of countries. In this chapter, we use two rounds of the nationally representative IHDS data sets from India to analyse patterns of unhealthy body mass index (BMI) levels for adult men and women. We find that the incidence of being overweight or obese is higher among women relative to men, and is more prevalent in urban settings than in rural settings. Excess weight has considerable negative health repercussions and is found to be associated with conditions like blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. Descriptive analysis at the regional level reveals a negative correlation between poverty and excess BMI: poorer states have fewer overweight or obese people. This suggests that income plays an important role in determining excess weight.