Distribution of body mass index of Indian women: a study based on NFHS-2 and NFHS-3

World Health Organization recommended Body Mass Index (BMI) as a measure of nutritional status of adults. This study investigates the distribution of BMI and its changes among Indian women in the age-group 15-49 years based on sampled data of 83,646 and 111,983 women from the National Family Health Survey-2 (NFHS-2) and NFHS-3 respectively. Background characteristics (BC) specific distributional changes in BMI are demonstrated by (i) fitting an appropriate probability distributions (ii) partial sum based on percentiles of distribution and (iii) test of equality of percentiles of distribution of BMI from NFHS-2 and NFHS-3. Relative measures R1 and R2 are defined to demonstrate burden of underweight and obesity. Changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity and annual gain in mean BMI for synthetic cohort by age-groups are presented. Rapid increments are observed in mean and higher percentiles of BMI among married women, women in the higher age-groups, and women from south zone of India. High prevalence of underweight is observed among rural women (40.6%) and women from low standard of living (49.7%). Double burden of underweight and obesity is reported among older, rich and highly educated women and women from Christian and Sikh religions. Tests of equality of percentiles of BMI are rejected (