Qualitative changes in the health hazards are at issue as the rural communities have been transformed in recent years. One such sign is the obesity of women in the rural communities. There is a need to make an epidemiological study on what effects obesity has brought about on their health.
We have conducted a fact-finding survey on the distribution of obesity among rural women, changes in the rate of obesity by age, relations among obesity, abnormal findings in various examinations and morbidity, relations between annual changes in body weight and changes in the test values as well as relations between obesity and factors associated with the living environment for an analysis.
The survey covered persons who underwent a mass health screening we carried out in Nagano Prefecture. In checking relations between changes in the rate of obesity and factors associated with the living environment, inhabitants of the village of Yachiho in South Saku County of Nagano Prefecture were covered,
Findings: The rate of obesity has become higher among rural women in their middle and high age brackets. Particularly, there were marked signs of obesity between 1950 and 1970. By occupation, the rate was high among women who were not engaged in farm work, but by area, the rate was high among women living in the mountain areas. By crop, there were signs of a rise in the rate in areas where vegetables constituted the main produce. There were also signs of a rise among women whose gross income and non-agricultural income were high. In relation to health hazards, the morbidityassociated with the circulatory, endocrine, muscular and skeletal systems was high. In terms of test values, the higher the obesity, the higher the maximum and minimum blood pressure values, ischemic changes ECG, arteriosclerotic changes in the fundus, GOT, GPT, blood glucose, uric acid and total cholesterol. In the dietary pattern, there were signs that the intakes of calory, protein, fat and sugar were higher among women with obesity, whereas the intake of calcium, iron and vitamin C was rather low. By type of food, the intake of sugar, oil and drinks was high among women with obesity, but that of beans, fishes and shellfishes, milk and greens was low. Though the calory was high, signs of an unbalanced nutrition intake, which could be described as low in nutrition, could be observed.