Blood Pressure, Hypertension and Obesity in Young Adults in a Tertiary Health Institution in Southwest Nigeria

Abstract

Hypertension and obesity are significant causes of morbidity and the numbers are growing in Nigeria and the world at large. 
Indeed, hypertension has been cited as one of the leading causes of death worldwide and obesity has been identified as a strong 
risk factor in the development of hypertension. The relationship between obesity and hypertension had been studied largely 
among older population. This study aims at determining the relationship between obesity and hypertension in young adults at 
University College Hospital (UCH). This is an analytical cross-sectional study conducted at UCH. Participants aged 18 to 30 
years were recruited using a non-probability sampling technique. Data were collected using questionnaire after informed consent. 
Additionally, weight, height, waist and hip circumference and blood pressure (BP) of participants were taken. A total of 60 males 
and 51 females participated in the study. Mean age of 22.8 ± 2.3 years and 23.1 ± 2.1 years for male and female respectively.
The mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures were 120.2± 16.9, 79.5± 11.7 and 113.8 ± 7.6, 72.7 ± 5.7 for male and female 
respectively, while the mean waist circumference (WC) was 75.3± 7.0 and 72.5± 8.2 for male and female respectively. The 
prevalence of hypertension was 5.4% in the population, whereas the prevalence of obesity was 3.6%, 4.5% and 11.7% based on 
body mass index (BMI), waist hip ratio (WHR) and waist circumference (WC) respectively. From this study the prevalence of 
hypertension is 5.4% and there are more obese female than male using waist circumference as the index of obesity.