Increasing Health Burden Due to Rapid Lifestyle Changes among the Tribal Communities of India

Recent decades have experienced rapid socio-economic, demographic, epidemiological and nutritional transitions resulting in changes in dietary habits, nutritional status, adiposity-related chronic diseases and lifestyle patterns in many developing countries [1-5]. Tribal groups of India in this context present a very disheartening picture. Conventionally, studies related to health issues among tribal populations have shown a high prevalence of undernutrition. However, with the changes in lifestyles, these tribal groups have been inflicted with various cardiovascular and metabolic disorders in different proportions.

Since the total Scheduled Tribe population of India constitutes about 8.6 per cent of the total population of the country [6] and a major numerical chunk, it is worth investigating the changing perspectives of health among the tribes of India in the context of lifestyle diseases in India.

Precisely for this reason the present paper aims to understand the association of age, sex and Body Mass Index (BMI) with the different metabolic health risk factors using data from six tribes in the Birbhum district of West Bengal and Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, India. Results of the present study indicate that young tribal males are showing an increasing tendency towards growing body weight, against the traditional wisdom, which in turn has been found to be strongly associated with metabolic risk factors. Tribal females are in more danger of developing metabolic risks at lower BMI, irrespective of age, clearly indicating an increasing tendency towards a double burden of disease among the Indian tribal populations. Therefore, the Indication of an increasing tendency towards a double burden of disease among the Indian tribal populations with some risk factors associated with undernutrition and better nutrition needs to be addressed immediately before the situation becomes too alarming.