3. Original Scientific Paper Differential eating behaviour among the Overweight and Obese of Central India by B.K. Sen and R.K. Gautam Abstract Introduction: Food culture and behaviour is largely determined by environment and geo-climatic setup. Obesity is an outcome of overconsumption or energy imbalance. Balanced diet or energy intake helps in the prevention of weight gain and obesity. It leads to many health related problems which affect the health care systems and the economy also. Aim: To find out the association of dietary behaviour with overweight or obesity. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a total of 1000 respondents consisting of 417 males and 583 female who have BMI ≥25 Kg/m2 and age range between 18- 60 years. The sample were drawn from district Sagar of Madhya Pradesh. Results: In the present study it was revealed that the habit of eating non-vegetarians food was higher ~12% among the obese than overweight; further alcoholism, smoking and tobaccoism were found higher (22.8%, 15.7% and 42.3%) respectively among the overweight respondents but it was not similar in case of urban and rural respondents. Similarly, intake of fried and oily, was found higher (~11.3%) among the obese. The mean BMI for overweight was 27.55± 1.34 Kg/m2 and for obese it was 33.48 ± 3.14 Kg/m2 and the t-test was significant (t= -40.080 df= 998, P ≤ 0.001). Conclusion: It can be concluded that the dietary behaviour is a determinants for increasing obesity. The consumption of non-vegetarian diet, fried and oily foods have significant association with obesity. Download Complete Article