BMC Public Health Research article Anthropometry measures and prevalence of obesity in the urban adult population of Cameroon: an update from the Cameroon Burden of Diabetes Baseline Survey Raoul M Kamadjeu*1, Richard Edwards2, Joseph S Atanga1, Emmanuel C Kiawi1, Nigel Unwin3 and Jean-Claude Mbanya1 BioMed Central Open Access Address: 1Health of Population in Transition (HoPiT) Research Group. Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (FMSB). Yaoundé University I, Cameroon, 2Department of Public Health, Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand and 3The Medical School, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Department of Medicine and Human Diabetes and Metabolism Research Centre, the Medical School. University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK Email: Raoul M Kamadjeu* - raoul.kamadjeu@gmail.com; Richard Edwards - richard.edwards@otago.ac.nz; Joseph S Atanga - shujoe@yahoo.co.uk; Emmanuel C Kiawi - kiawi_emma@yahoo.com; Nigel Unwin - unwinn@who.int; Jean- Claude Mbanya - jcmbanya@yahoo.co.uk * Corresponding author Published: 13 September 2006 BMC Public Health 2006, 6:228 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-6-228 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/6/228 Received: 25 March 2006 Accepted: 13 September 2006 © 2006 Kamadjeu et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: The objective of the study was to provide baseline and reference data on the prevalence and distribution of overweight and obesity, using different anthropometric measurements in adult urban populations in Cameroon. Methods: The Cameroon Burden of Diabetes Baseline Survey was a cross-sectional study, conducted in 4 urban districts (Yaoundé, Douala, Garoua and Bamenda) of Cameroon, using the WHO Step approach for population-based assessment of cardiovascular risk factors. Body mass index, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio were measured using standardized methods. Overall, 10,011 individuals, 6,004 women and 4,007 men, from 4,189 households, aged 15 years and above participated. Results: Based on body mass index, more than 25% of urban men and almost half of urban women were either overweight or obese with 6.5% of men and 19.5% of women being obese. The prevalence of obesity showed considerable variation with age in both genders. Using body mass index provided the highest prevalence of obesity in men (6.5%) and waist-to-hip ratio the lowest prevalence (3.2%). Among women, using waist-to-hip ratio and waist circumference yielded the highest prevalence of obesity (28%) and body mass index the lowest (19.5%). There was a trend towards an increase in age-adjusted odd ratios of being overweight or obese with duration of education in both sexes. Conclusion: The study provides current data on anthropometric measurements and obesity in urban Cameroonian populations, and found high prevalences of overweight and obesity particularly over 35 years of age, and among women. Prevalence varied according to the measure used. Our findings highlight the need to carry out further studies in Cameroonian and other Sub-Saharan African populations to provide appropriate cut-off points for the identification of people at risk of obesity-related disorders, and indicate the need to implement interventions to reverse increasing levels of obesity. Page 1 of 8 (page number not for citation purposes)