Association between sociodemographic variables, healthy habits and stress with diabesity.

Introduction: Diabesity is a pathological condition that combines obesity and type 2 diabetes in the same individual. Due to the current rise in both conditions, the prevalence of diabesity is increasing worldwide. Its etiology is known to be multifactorial; therefore, the aim of this study is to understand how diabesity is associated with various sociodemographic variables, healthy habits, and stress.

Materials and methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted on 24,224 Spanish workers to evaluate the association between diabesity and various factors such as age, gender, socioeconomic status, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, adherence to the Mediterranean diet, and stress. The criteria used to define diabesity included body mass index (BMI), body fat (BF), and visceral fat (VF).

Results: All the aforementioned variables were found to be associated with diabesity. The highest odds ratios (OR) were observed for age, with values ranging from 5.57 (95% CI: 4.48-6.67) when BF was used as the diabesity criterion to 6.89 (95% CI: 5.60-8.19) when VF was the criterion. Similarly, elevated ORs were observed for male gender, with ORs of 6.77 (95% CI: 5.31-8.24) for VF and 3.34 (95% CI: 2.77-3.94) for BF.

Conclusions: In our study, the profile of a person at highest risk of diabesity is a man over 50 years old from a lower socioeconomic status, who is a smoker, regular alcohol consumer, sedentary, with low adherence to the Mediterranean diet, and experiencing high stress levels.