Factors associated with excessive body fat in men and women living in urban and rural communities

This study looks at the factors associated with excessive body fat (overweight and obesity) among men and women living in a resource-poor rural urban community and an urban township of South Africa. It utilizes the a cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study, Cape Town Centre, conducted in 2009/2010.The PURE study is a multi-country investigation of the relative contributions of societal influences such as urbanization, nutrition, built environment and lifestyle behaviours on obesity and chronic health conditions including heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

A rural community and an urban township were purposively selected for comparison and for feasibility of long term follow up. Stratified sampling and cluster sampling methods were used to collect data in the urban and rural locations respectively. Anthropometric measurements were obtained and risk factors were documented through face-to-face interviews using validated international PURE study protocols.

The attached dataset is a sub-sample from the PURE study baseline data collected in 2009/2010, and included 1220 participants (77.2% women) aged 35-70 years for which physical measurement and risk factors of interest were available.