• Pouria Mousapour, Majid Valizadeh, Maryam Mahdavi, Navid Saadat, Maryam Barzin, Fereidoun Azizi, and Farhad Hosseinpanah.
• Obesity Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
• Arch Iran Med. 2020 Jun 1; 23 (6): 378-385.

BackgroundA rise in the global prevalence of severe obesity (body mass index; BMI of ≥35 kg/m2 ) has been reported. In this study, we investigated the trends in the prevalence of severe obesity among Tehranian adults over the past two decades.MethodsA representative sample of 10,045 Tehranians aged ≥19 years were followed from 1999 to 2017. The trends in the prevalence of severe obesity were investigated over six cross-sectional phases with 3.6-year intervals using generalized estimating equations.ResultsIn this cohort, the overall prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.6% (1.8% in males and 6.7% in females) in 1999 to 10.1% (4.7% in males and 14.3% in females) in 2017. The persisted rising in prevalence in the youngest age-group in both genders, with the most rapid increase among females aged 19-29 years, plateaued in the older ages and remained unchanged among males aged over 50 years. After age-sex standardized analysis by using Tehranian urban population data, the prevalence rates of severe obesity in Tehranian men and women were estimated to be 1.9% and 5.7% in 1996, and 4.5% and 10.9% in 2016, respectively.ConclusionA high prevalence of severe obesity among Tehranian adults has been stabilized over the past two decades. Preventive interventions should be focused on the younger and middle-aged population, to mitigate the subsequent burden of severe obesity on Tehranian population and the healthcare system.© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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