Determination Of Psychosocial Factors Related To The Body Mass Index In Women

Objective: Weight problem is one of the rapidly growing problems of public health. The purpose of this research is that researching psychosocial factors that is related weight gain in women. Methods: The study is sectional research that is made up by 150 women who live in Kocaeli. Personel information form that includes age, education level, marital status, having a child, job, working, economical status, psychiatric illness story, chronic illness, obesity in family, was prepared by researcher. Body mass index that is determined by World Health Organization was used in order to determine weight level. Results: Primary school and lower education level is seen in the group with the highest obesity rate at 54%, university and higher education level is seen in the normal group with the highest 72%. There is a medium level positive lineer correlation between body mass index and total chronic illness (p<0.05). There is no relation between groups about smoking (p>0.05). When, the most psychiatric illness story is found in obesity group with 47.9%, the lowest rate is 25% in overweight group. Conclusions: Age, education level, job, psychiatric illness story, number of child and other variables are found related factors in weight gain. It is important that determining avoidable factors on weight problem and having solutions for them, in order to make preventive health studies