[Epidemiology of obesity in the work milieu, Douala, Cameroon]

Obesity is a worldwide public health problem, and its burden has been poorly explored in Cameroon, especially in work place. We therefore carried out in April 2010, an analytic cross-sectional study aiming to determine the prevalence of obesity, associated risk factors and health risk in six randomly selected enterprises based in Douala. Among the 552 participants, 383 (69.4%) were males. Most of the workers (55.4%) were aged less than 35 years old. There was 191 (34.60%) office staff as against 361 (65.40%) labourers. In each participant, blood pressures, and fasting blood glucose were recorded, as well as obesity indexes comprising body mass index and waist circumference. They were calculated and data analyzed using SPSS 16 and Win Pepi 11.8. The prevalence of obesity in workers was 23.4%, and was more pronounced in women than in men (36.1% vs 17.8%; P < 0.005). The workers aged > or = 45 years old exhibited highest obesity rate than other age group (P = 0.03). Importantly, ...