Obesidad y nivel socio económico de la población adulta de Argentina

According to WHO estimates (2011), since 1980 obesity has more than doubled worldwide. Cross-country data for 2010 show that the male population of Argentina would be second in the ranking of the group with the highest prevalence of obesity in America (only after the United States) with 47.8% of men over 30 years old and BMI ≥ 30 more kg / m² (WHO Global Infobase, 2011). For its part, the female population of same age group would also present a very high prevalence of obesity (47%), which would place Argentina 12^th in the regional ranking. Therefore, the problem has ceased to be unique in some developed countries and in Argentina studying the causes and consequences of obesity, and the study of the actions needed to prevent it, should be a priority item on the agenda of this country. In turn, several studies show that obesity prevalence distributions skewed towards individuals belonging to the lower socio-economic groups. This paper seeks to characterize the prevalence of obesity according to socio-economic strata and gender among the adult population of Argentina. Also, we estimate the probability of suffering from chronic diseases highly associated with obesity (such as diabetes, high cholesterol, etc..) according to the strata in order to assess to what extent there is an interaction effect between obesity and socioeconomic status of the person. We use the microdata from the National Survey of Risk Factors in Argentina, conducted in 2009 among urban populations of the country, collecting information for population 18 years and older.