Japanese Journal of Health and Human Ecology

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The relationship between obesity and socio-economical, geographical and agricultural factors was investigated among 3098 female farmers (40.8 ± 8.5 yrs.), members of the 31 Agricultural Co-operative Associations examined for health testing in 1967-1969 and 4891 female farmers from the same Associations in 1976-1978. And the prevalence rates were compared with non-agricultural females and males and also male farmers in the same districts. The degree of obesity of the subjects in 1967-1978 were culculated 103.6 ± 12.7 by percent of the Minowa's standard weight, 109.7 ± 14.1 by the Broca's standard, 22.0 ± 2.7 by the Kaup index and the prevalence rates of obesity were 9.4% by the Minowa's standard (over 20%), 13.6% by the Broca's standard (over 20%), 8.4% by the Kaup index (over 25). Both, the degree and the prevalence rate, were significantly higher than that of the subjects in 1967-1968. The peak of the average degree of obesity in each age bracket was altered from 40-49 to 50-59 for ten years after the former examination. The highest increase of the prevalence rate of obesity for ten years was observed in the age cohort of 35-39 of the former examination. Generally, higher prevalence rate was observed in male subjects than female's. But over 50 years old female subjects showed significantly higher prevalence rate. Higher prevalence rate was observed in non-agricultural subjects than in agricultural ones, especially for males. Among the four divisions of agricultural districts of Kumamoto prefecture, there were more obese subjects in “Amakusa” than other districts. And among the four agriculturaleconomical resions, the prevalence of the “urbanizing-rural resion” was the highest. The highest increasing rate for ten years was observed in the “rural-mountain resion”. Higher prevalence rate was observed in the districts where lower crude agricultural yields (in 1975) and/or lower it's increasing ratio (1965-1975) were estimated. There were noticeable findings to recognize how the socio-economic factors and agricultural conditions might play an important role on the prevalence of obesity in female farmers.

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The geographical distribution and migratory history were surveyed in July 1978 on 648 new patients visiting the Kabul Tuberculosis Center (KTC), the main health institution in Kabul City for tuberculosis control, for clinical examination and on the selected 130 tuberculosis patients under treatment in KTC. Analysis has shown that people were visiting KTC for clinical examination from nearly all the provinces in Afghanistan. It has also indicated that the proportion of the immigrants among the tuberculosis patients from Kabul City who were under treatment in KTC was significantly greater than that of the total population of Kabul City, while this proportionamong the new patients from Kabul City coincided with that of the total population. This may suggest the higher prevalence of tuberculosis among the immigrants than among the natives of Kabul City.

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