RESEARCH ARTICLE Factors Associated with Excessive Body Fat in Men and Women: Cross-Sectional Data from Black South Africans Living in a Rural Community and an Urban Township

Objective To determine the factors associated with excessive body fat among black African men and women living in rural and urban communities of South Africa. Methods This is a cross-sectional analysis of data from the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiol-ogy (PURE) study, Cape Town, South Africa conducted in 2009/2010. The study sample included 1220 participants (77.2 % women) aged 35–70 years, for whom anthropometric measurements were obtained and risk factors documented through face-to-face interviews using validated international PURE study protocols. Sex-specific logistic regression models were used to evaluate socio-demographic, lifestyle and psychological factors associated with three excessive body fat indicators, namely body mass index (BMI), waist circumfer-ence (WC) and body fat percent (BF%). Results The prevalence of excessive body fat based on BF%, WC and BMI cut-offs were 96.0%, 86.1%, and 81.6 % for women respectively, and 62.2%, 25.9%, and 36.0 % for men respec-tively. The significant odds of excessive body fat among the currently married compared to unmarried were 4.1 (95 % CI: 1.3–12.5) for BF % and 1.9 (95 % CI: 1.3–2.9) for BMI amon