BMC Public Health 2006, 6:228 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/6/228 Ethical issues All participants gave their written informed consent to participate. The protocol for the Cameroon Burden of Diabetes Baseline Survey was approved by the Cameroon National Ethics Committee. Results The mean age of respondents, estimated taking the strati- fied sampling design into consideration did not differ sig- nificantly between men (31.6 years, 95% CI: 30.8–32.5) and women (31.1 95% CI: 30.5–31.8). Anthropometric measurements Anthropometric measures were obtained for 94%, 94% and 93% of male participants and for 96%, 93% and 95% of women for weight, waist circumference and height respectively. Table 1 shows gender specific means for anthropometric measurements by age group. Men were generally about 10 cm taller than women and the differ- ence was constant across age ranges. Mean levels of BMI and WC, but not WHR, were higher among women than men in all age groups. All anthropometric measurements except height in women peaked within the 45–54 year old age group, and then declined thereafter. Correlation between anthropometrics measurements Pair-wise partial correlation between weight, BMI, WC, HC and WHR was investigated, after controlling for age. The results are presented in figure 1. Weight, BMI, WC and HC were generally strongly correlated in both sexes; sug- gesting that measures of obesity based on these parame- ters will provide comparable information. However, WHR showed a weaker correlation with the other anthropomet- ric measurements. Prevalence of underweight, overweight and obesity The prevalence of overweight and obesity, based on BMI, WC and WHR are shown in table 2. Irrespective of age or measure used, women always had a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity than men. Based on BMI, over 25% of men and almost half of women were either over- weight or obese with 6.5% of men and 19.5% of women in the obese category. The difference in prevalence of obesity between men and women was particularly large in the younger age group (15 – 34 years), where the ratio of prevalence of obese women to obese men was over five (11.8% versus 2.4%). The prevalence of overweight and obesity varied greatly with age, generally increasing, irrespective of the measure- ment used. The prevalence of BMI obesity increased with age until 45–54 yrs and then declined (p value for trend < 0.001); this trend was more pronounced among women. There was a particularly large increase between the 15–34 yrs and 35–44 yrs age groups. Moving from the baseline age group category (15–34 yrs) to the next (35–44 yrs) increased the prevalence of obesity as estimated by BMI, WC and WHR by 5.8, 14, and 4.5 fold respectively in men and by almost 3, 3 and 2 times respectively in women. The prevalence of underweight (BMI<20 kg/m2) demon- strated a very different pattern (figure 2) with the highest proportion of underweight in the two extreme age groups (15–34 and 55+ years) in both sexes. The prevalence of underweight was similar between males and females, and was higher than that of obesity in men (9.8% versus 6.5%) but not women. The prevalence of underweight was far less than that of overweight and obesity combined in both sexes, particularly among women (males 9.8% vs 28.1%; women 7.0% vs 48.1%). Obesity in relation to age Figure 3 shows the distribution of obesity in the study population based on BMI, WC and WHR. The three meas- urements appear to provide different prevalence of obes- ity across genders. For example, in the 15–34 years age Table 1: Mean anthropometric (standard error) variables by age groups, in urban adult population of Cameroon. Findings of the 2003 Cameroon Burden of Diabetes Baseline Survey Men 15 – 34 35 – 44 45 – 54 55+ Total Women 15 – 34 35 – 44 45 – 54 55+ Total N 2116 558 509 563 3746 3328 1156 631 593 5708 Height Weight BMI 170.5 (0.15) 172.1 (0.48) 170.8 (0.31) 168.7 (0.36) 170.6 (0.12) 161.3 (0.13) 162.0 (0.23) 161.6 (0.25) 157.5 (0.28) 161.3 (0.10) 65.5 (0.40) 74.6 (0.31) 74.8 (0.37) 70.1 (0.64) 68.3 (0.31) 64.1 (0.34) 73.4 (0.35) 75.4 (0.73) 65.2 (1.02) 67.0 (0.28) 22.5 (0.11) 25.1 (0.17) 25.5 (0.13) 24.6 (0.19) 23.4 (0.09) 24.6 (0.13) 27.9 (0.17) 28.9 (0.32) 26.1 (0.41) 25.7 (0.11) WC 75.9 (0.20) 86.1 (0.72) 89.0 (0.68) 87.6 (0.65) 80.0 (0.27) 78.0 (0.34) 87.3 (0.58) 90.8 (0.75) 87.7 (1.00) 81.7 (0.31) HC 91.4 (0.21) 97.2 (0.64) 97.4 (0.67) 95.0 (0.46) 93.3 (0.22) 97.6 (0.32) 104.9 (0.53) 106.3 (0.75) 99.9 (0.99) 100.0 (0.27) WHR 83.2 (0.20) 88.5 (0.29) 91.3 (0.30) 92.0 (0.35) 85.7 (0.18) 80.1 (0.29) 83.3 (0.33) 85.9 (0.69) 88.1 (0.68) 81.8 (0.22) WC (Waist Circumference in cm), HC (Hip Circumference in cm), BMI (Body Mass Index in kg/m2), WHR (Waist Hip Ratio). Page 3 of 8 (page number not for citation purposes)