Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Overweight and obesity have been reported to increase steadily in both developed and developing countries. Among many Asian countries, Pakistan is also facing the increase overweight and obesity rate as an epidemic. Interestingly, this trend is not uniform across all socioeconomic classes and genders but is more prevalent in women and varies across different age groups and socioeconomic classes in Pakistan. According to the Lancet (2013), 27.9 % male adults and 38.4% female adults (20 years and older) have been reported to be overweight /obese in Pakistan. Various studies suggest that women are less involved in physical activities (PA), hence are found more overweight /obese than their male counterparts, but there are several contributing factors which restricts women to actively engage themselves in PA. Built environment, personal, religious, cultural and socioeconomic factors play a great role in determining women participation in PA indoor and outdoor. There are strong evidences of several neighborhoods in middle-income and low-income classes in Karachi and other parts of country, where women are not seen in parks and play grounds at all. The proposed study explores how built environment, personal, religious, cultural, and socioeconomic factors tend to cause more overweight /obesity in women than men in largest city Karachi, Pakistan. We selected 300-350 random samples of 20 years or older male and female adults from each socioeconomic class (70-100 from each SEC, 50 % male and 50 % female approx.). The sample data was analyzed in three categories of socioeconomic-classes through OLS regression modelling in GIS/Statista.