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VARIATION IN HEIGHT AND BMI OF ADULT INDIANS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2013

SUPARNA SOM ,
STANLEY ULIJASZEK ,
MANORANJAN PAL ,
SUSMITA BHARATI  and
PREMANANDA BHARATI
SUPARNA SOM
Affiliation:
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
STANLEY ULIJASZEK
Affiliation:
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity, University of Oxford, UK
MANORANJAN PAL
Affiliation:
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
SUSMITA BHARATI
Affiliation:
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
PREMANANDA BHARATI*
Affiliation:
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
*
1Corresponding author: Email: bharati@isical.ac.in
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Summary

It is well known that height and weight are interrelated, and that both are related to socioeconomic variables. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of socioeconomic variables on the heights and weights of different groups of people, formed according to different levels of heights and weights, and to see whether there are sex differences in the variations in heights and weights. Data for adults aged 15–49 years were taken from the India National Family Health Survey-3 and descriptive studies and multiple linear regression analyses carried out. A clear positive association was found for height and BMI with economic level (except for overweight females in the case of BMI). In the case of BMI, it is age that seems to be the most influential factor. Surprisingly, the observed changes in height and BMI are not as expected for short and tall or underweight and overweight people; these sometimes behave in the opposite directions to that of normal height and weight people. The basic assumption of multivariate normality is not valid due to changing relations at different height and BMI levels.

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Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 47 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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