Kolkata, Dec 07: After creating a public health menace in the USA and other western countries, the problem of obesity is fast spreading in India with almost a third of middle class men and half its women falling prey to the lifestyle anomaly, according to nutrition experts here. Among the non-obese Indian middle class, more than one fifth exhibited abdominal obesity, Dr P S Chatterjee, Professor in the School of Tropical Medicine's Department of nutrition and metabolic diseases said at a seminar on 'ideal body weight -- how to achieve?' yesterday.

"Both the forms of obesity are associated with an increased prevalence of type two diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis and carcinomas," Chatterjee said.

Quoting recent survey findings, he said 32 per cent Indian adults in the high socio-economic group were overweight while three per cent men and 14 per cent women above 40 years of age suffered from obesity, an anomaly that the who has placed in the list of top 10 killers.

According to the findings compiled by the Indian chapter of Canada-based International College of Nutrition (ICN), every 15th school going child in the high or higher-middle income group in India was found to be obese.

Pointing out that obesity created a hot bed for a plethora of diseases, assistant professor in the Department of Medicine and Endocrinology of the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital Dr Asish Kumar Basu said the most dreadful complication being reported in recent times was an upsurge in cancer cases.

Bureau Report