Dietary Weight Loss Practice among Government Working Women Who Successfully Lose Weight in Malaysia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3923/pjn.2014.486.491Keywords:
Adult Malaysian women, dietary weight loss practice, auccessful weight loss, working womenAbstract
Overweight and obesity is a public health concern. Previously, obesity was exclusive to developed country only but nowadays, it is on the rise in developing countries as well. The purpose of this study was to determine the pattern of dietary weight loss practice among Malaysian government working women who are working in selected public funded institutions in Malaysia. This cross-sectional study involved two phases; firstly 639 adult Malaysian working women were recruited and underwent weight loss screening process and secondly 120 working women identified from the screening process based on their experience of losing at least 10% of their highest lifetime body weight, which is a criterion for successful weight loss. Simple random sampling method was used to select 4 ministries in Putrajaya vicinity, Kuala Lumpur and 25 schools in Bandar Baru Bangi. Data were collected via a survey using a set of self-administered questionnaire that includes socio-demographic characteristics, weight history and anthropometric measurements (weight, height, waist circumference, body fat). The study was conducted within one year duration from June 2011 to June 2012. The prevalence of successful weight loss among government working women was 18.8% (120/639). The mean age of women who experienced successful weight loss in this study was 33.2±7.7 years old. Majority of these women were married (72.5%), of Malay ethnicity (96.7%), had 1.3±1.5 children and had college or university degree (79.2%). Eat more fruits and vegetables was the predominant dietary weight loss strategy used (50.8%), followed by reduce the amount of eating food (49.2%) and reduce fatty food intake (42.5%). The prevalence of successful weight loss was low (18.8%) among government working women in selected public funded institutions in Malaysia. Eat more fruits and vegetables, reduce the amount of eating food and reduce fatty food intake were the main dietary weight loss strategies used by these women.
References
Amin, I., S. Rusidah, M.K. Norhayati, M.N. Fairulnizal and A.H. Norliza, 2012. Current status of food composition data in Malaysia. Proceedings of the 1st Australian Food Metrology Symposium, October 23, 2012, Melbourne, Australia.
Crawford, D., R.W. Jeffery and S.A. French, 2000. Can anyone successfully control their weight? Findings of a three year community-based study of men and women. Int. J. Obes., 24: 1107-1110.
Gregg, E.W. and D.F. Williamson, 2002. The Relationship of Intentional Weight Loss to Disease Incidence and Mortality. In: Handbook of Obesity Treatment, Wadden, T.A. and A.J. Stunkard (Eds.). The Guilford Press, New York.
Khambalia, A.Z. and L.S. Seen, 2010. Trend in overweight and obesity adult in Malaysia (1996-2009): A systematic review. Obes. Rev., 11: 403-412.
Kong, W.T., S.S. Chua and A. Syireen, 2002. Weight loss practices among Malaysian adults. Asia Pacific J. Public Health, 14: 99-104.
Kruger, J., H.M. Blanck and C. Gillespie, 2006. Dietary and physical activity behaviors among adults successful at weight loss maintenance. Int. J. Behav. Nutr. Phys. Activity, Vol. 3.
Lim, T.O., L.M. Ding, M. Zaki, A.B. Suleiman and S. Fatimah et al., 2000. Distribution of body weight, height and body mass index in a national sample of Malaysian adults. Med. J. Mal., 55: 108-128.
McGuire, M.T., R.R. Wing, M.L. Klem, W. Lang and J.O. Hill, 1999. What predicts weight regain and a group of successful weight losers? J. Consulting Clin. Psychol., 67: 177-185.
NIH., 1998. Clinical guidelines on the identification, evaluation and treatment of overweight and obesity in adults-the evidence report. Obes. Res., 6: 51S-209S.
Noor, S.Z., P.L. Lua and M.M. Nik, 2011. Body weight satisfaction: Association with weight control practice among type 2 diabetic patients. Malaysian J. Nutr., 17: 55-66.
Powell, L.H., J.E. Calvin and J.E. Calvin Jr., 2007. Effective obesity treatments. Am. Psychol., 62: 234-246.
Affira, K.S., M.T.M. Nasir, A.S. Hazizi and M. Kandiah, 2011. Socio-demographic and psychosocial factors associated with physical activity of working woman in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. Mal. J. Nutr., 17: 315-324.
Mohamud, W.N.W., K.I. Musa, A.S. Khir, A.A.S. Ismail and I.S. Ismail et al., 2011. Prevalence of overweight and obesity among adult Malaysians: An update. Asia Pac. J. Clin. Nutr., 20: 35-41.
Weiss, E.C., D.A. Galuska, L.K. Khan, C. Gillespie and M.K. Serdula, 2007. Weight regain in U.S. adults who experienced substantial weight loss, 1999-2002. Am. J. Prev. Med., 33: 34-40.
WHO., 2000. Obesity: Preventing and managing the global epidemic: Report of a WHO consultation. Technical Report Series No. 894, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/who_trs_894.pdf.
Wyatt, H.R., G.K. Grunwald, C.L. Mosca, M.L. Klem, R.R. Wing and J.O. Hill, 2002. Long-term weight loss and breakfast in subjects in the national weight control registry. Obes. Res., 10: 78-82.
Omar, Z.A. and F.I. Mustapha, 2012. Status of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDS) in Malaysia: An urgent call for action. Proceedings of the UPM-Mead Johnson 3rd Nutrition Seminar (Nutritional Intervention in NCDs), November 8, 2012, Ministry of Health, Malaysia.
Zwaan, M.D., A. Hilbert, S. Herpertz, S. Zipfel, M. Beutel, O. Gefeller and B. Muehlhans, 2008. Weight loss maintenance in a population based sample of German adults. Obesity, 16: 2535-2540.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2014 Asian Network for Scientific Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
