The Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey as a Basis for Public Policy Planning: Overweight and Obesity

Abstract

Mexico has one of the highest overweight and obesity rates in the world. Our objective is to describe the tendency of overweight and obesity by sex, health service affiliation, and socioeconomic tertile (T1,2,3), and to give examples of public policies derived from the results of the Mexican National Health and Nutrition Surveys (ENSANUT). Data come from the 2006, 2012, and 2016 ENSANUTs, which are probabilistic surveys that allow us to make inferences at the national level, on urban and rural strata and regions; their coverage includes all the population age groups. We assessed overweight and obesity (OW + O) in all population groups. The prevalence of OW + O in preschool children was lower in T1 in all the surveys, and shows an increase by year of survey, according to the health service affiliation. In school-age women, prevalence increased over the 10 years of evaluation, in spite of the high prevalence in both genders in T3. Adolescent behavior is similar and, in adults, the prevalence of OW + O shows an increase by year of survey, gender, and affiliation, with the differences not explained by socioeconomic tertile. In conclusion, the ENSANUT series represents a surveillance system that allow us to observe the changes in overweight and obesity prevalence over the time, showing a high prevalence of OW + O in the population, and has contributed to public policy enhancement.

Keywords: National Health and Nutrition Surveys; obesity; overweight; public policies.

Figure 1

Overweight and obesity prevalence in school-age children, adolescents, and adults from 1988 to 2016: distribution by sex and locality. ENSANUT, Mexico. Anthropometric data analyzed according to WHO Growth reference data for 5–19 years (2007) Source: ENN 88 and 99, ENSANUT 2006 and 2012, ENSANUT Medio Camino, 2016.

Figure 2

Logistic regression models * to measure the association between overweight and obesity and food Insecurity in Mexico, ENSANUT MC 2016. * Models adjusted by: age, sex, health services affiliation, socioeconomic level, and whether or not one is a beneficiary of the social development PROSPERA program.