Embonpoint, obésité, genre et inégalités sociales au Canada
Overweight and obesity are an epidemic health problem Worldwide. A large number of Epidemiological studies demonstrate social gradient (SES) whit this problematic: the higher the socioeconomic level of the household the lower the Overweight or Obesity rate are. Recent Canadian data shows that the likelihood of being overweight follows a socio economic (SES) gradient. However, the risk increases with the SES for men and decreases for women. Our aims are (1) to examine if this gender-reversed SES gradient is observable for pre-obesity as well as for obesity; and (2) to which extent this gradient can be explained by, socio-demographic, psychosocial and behavioural factors. Methods: Data was derived from a subsample of Canadian adults (25-65 years) who responded to the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS 2.2, Statistics Canada). We choose this survey because the BMI is derived from anthropometric measures of weight and height. We used two SES indicators: education level and measure of income sufficiency calculated by Statistics Canada. Multinomial logistic regressions were used to test our hypotheses’. Our results show a gender-reversed gradient for obesity but not for pre-obesity. Pre-obesity is significantly and positively associated to SES for men, but no significant relationship was found for women. For men, socio-demographic, behavioural and psychosocial factors neither contribute in explaining the relationship between SES and pre-obesity or obesity. For women, behavioural factors, mainly physical activity, contribute, however marginally, to reducing the gap between the poorest and the richest. In conclusion, these results show that targeting individual factors is a limited approach towards reducing overweight social inequalities.
embonpoints Canada Overweight Pre-obese Obesity SES Income Inequity Education Gender