title: Epidemiologic behavior of obesity in the Maracaibo City metabolic syndrome prevalence study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Obesity is a worldwide public health issue. Since the epidemiological behaviour of this disease is not well established in our country, the purpose of this study was to determinate its prevalence in the Maracaibo City, Zulia State- Venezuela.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional study was undertaken using the data set from the Maracaibo City Metabolic Syndrome Prevalence Study. The sample consists of 2108 individuals from both genders and randomly selected: 1119 (53.09%) women and 989 (46.91%) men. The participants were interrogated for a complete clinical history and anthropometric measurements. To classify obesity, the WHO criteria for Body Mass Index (BMI), and Waist Circumference (WC) from the IDF/NHLBI/AHA/WHF/IAS/IASO-2009 (IDF-2009) and ATPIII statements were applied.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For BMI, obesity had an overall prevalence of 33.3% (n = 701), and according to gender women had 32.4% (n = 363) and men had 34.2% (n = 338). Overweight had a prevalence of 34.8% (n = 733), Normal weight had 29.8% (n = 629), and Underweight had 2.1% (n = 45). Adding Obesity and Overweight results, the prevalence of elevated BMI (>25 Kg/m(2)) was 68.1%. Using the IDF-2009 WC's cut-off, Obesity had 74.2% prevalence, compared to 51.7% using the ATPIII parameters.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results show a high prevalence of abdominal obesity in our locality defined by the WHO, IDF-2009 and ATPIII criteria, which were not designed for Latin-American populations. We suggest further investigation to estimate the proper values according to ethnicity, genetic background and sociocultural aspects.
authors.affiliation: Medicine Faculty, Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases Research Center, The University of Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela. valmore@gmail.com
authors.forename: Valmore
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Bermúdez
authors.forename: Maikol
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pacheco
authors.forename: Joselyn
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rojas
authors.forename: Evelyn
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Córdova
authors.forename: Rossibel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Velázquez
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Carrillo
authors.forename: María G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Parra
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Toledo
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Añez
authors.forename: Eneida
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fonseca
authors.forename: Rafael París
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Marcano
authors.forename: Clímaco
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cano
authors.forename: José López
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Miranda
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002947:Cities; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D056128:Obesity, Abdominal; D015995:Prevalence; D012737:Sex Factors; D014687:Venezuela / Q000453:epidemiology; D055105:Waist Circumference; D055815:Young Adult