The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #57595

Gigliola Baruffi, MD, MPH, JABSOM, Dept of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, University of Hawaii, 1960 East West Road, C-103, Honolulu, HI 96822, (808) 956-5756, gigliola@hawaii.edu, Charles J. Hardy, BS, Private consultant, 1350 Ala Moana Boulevard, # 2903, Honolulu, HI 96814-4228, Carol I Waslien, PhD, Department of Public Health Sciences-Epidemiology, John A Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, 1960 East West Road, Biomedical Sciences Building, Honolulu, HI 96822, and Susan Uyehara, RD, MPH, Hawaii Dept. of Health WIC Program, 235 South Beretania Street, Suite 701, Honolulu, HI 96813.

Overweight and obesity are major contributing factors to health problems in the United States, particularly for ethnic minority women. Excessive weight gain during pregnancy is a likely contributor to obesity in women. African-American women retain more of this excessive prenatal weight gain than Caucasians or Hispanics. Little is known of prenatal excessive weight gain and retention in Asian and Pacific Island (API) women. Data from the Hawaii WIC Program for 1997-1998 were used to evaluate prenatal weight gain and retention in a racially mixed, predominantly API population. Records from 8,605 post-partum (PP) women were examined. Most women (67.2%) had self-reported pre-pregnancy BMI in the underweight or normal categories (as per IOM definition). 11.4% were in the overweight and 21.4% in the obese categories. The highest percentage of underweight women was found among Other Asians (32.0%), followed by Filipinos (26.3%). The highest percentage of pre-pregnancy obesity was found in the Samoan (54.7%) and the Hawaiian (28.5%) women. PP BMIs varied significantly by ethnicity with Other Asian and Filipino women showing the lowest and Samoan women the highest mean values. The mean BMI decreased significantly from the first 60 days to the later PP period only for women with a pre-pregnancy BMI in the underweight or normal categories. Samoan and Hawaiian women tended to retain more of their prenatal weight gain. These findings will be useful for developing culturally sensitive counseling to promote healthful eating and physical activity behavior fostering appropriate prenatal weight gain and PP weight loss.

Learning Objectives:

• "At the end of this presentation and discussion participants will:
• 1.Be able to recognize differences in prenatal weight gain in API women."
• 2."Be able to identify prenatal weight retention risks among API women."

Keywords: Asian and Pacific Islander Women, Pregnancy

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Handout (.ppt format, 98.0 kb)