Background:Obesity is a real pandemic and with ever increasing prevalence. Health
professionals play a vital role in the fight against this condition. They are
also affected by obesity and could be even more affected than the general
population. These health workers sometimes have a wrongperception of their
own weight which interferes with their ability to counsel their patients. The
purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and factors associated
with obesity among health care workers and increase their awareness of the
problem.Methodology: This was a
cross-sectional study conducted at the Yaoundé Central Hospital(YCH)and the Yaoundé
University Teaching Hospital(YUTH) during a 6 months period. The data were
collected through a questionnaire structured according to WHO STEPwise approach to
chronic disease risk factor surveillance (STEPS). We measured weight, height,
waist circumference, and blood pressure according to the WHO STEPS procedure.
The Chi square test and logistic regression were used to measure the
association between the qualitative variables. A p value <0.05 was considered
statistically significant.Results: A total of 350
health personnel participated in this study. The prevalence of obesity was
30.3%. That of abdominal obesity was 46.9%. The factors independently
associated to overall obesity were age
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