Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:
Body fat, blood pressure and fasting insulin levels (a marker of diabetes risk) all increased within a decade of moving to a city, and for decades blood pressure and insulin continued to rise above the levels of their rural counterparts. The findings raise public health concerns as the global population progressively becomes more urban.
According to the United Nations, the growth change in India’s urban population is 1.1 per cent every year, while the change in the proportion of people in rural areas is declining by 0.37 per cent. The proportion of Indians who live in cities is still much smaller than in the United States. Just 30 per cent of Indians live in urban areas, while 82 per cent of Americans live in urban areas.
That number is expected to rise as the proportion of people who live in rural areas in the United States declined by 1.6 per cent each year. The researchers, led by Dr Sanjay Kinra of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, compared rural Indians to their siblings who moved to one of four cities in India: Lucknow, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Siblings who lived in a city the longest had the highest average blood pressures.
For instance, men who lived in a city for more than 30 years had an average systolic blood pressure – the top number in a reading – of 126. Men who lived in a city 10-20 years had an average of 124, and those who staved in rural areas had an average of 123. Systolic blood pressure above 140 is considered high.
The change in body fat was most evident in the first 10 years after moving to a city, and then it levelled off. Men who stayed in rural areas had 21 per cent body fat on average, while those who moved within the past ten years had 24 per cent, on average. The recommended body fat percentage from the National Institutes of Health is 13 to 17 per cent.
The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, did not pinpoint the cause of these differences between the siblings who moved and those who stayed behind. Nor did it tease out whether the increased levels of body fat, blood pressure and insulin resulted in more disease.
Though other studies of rural-to-urban migration within developing countries have also found negative health effects related to moving to cities, city dwellers in the United States tend to be healthier than those who live in rural areas and even in the suburbs.
According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Americans who live in rural areas are more likely to have fair or poor health, develop chronic diseases, and die from heart disease. One study of suburbanites across several countries found that people who lived in cities were more likely to be active and to walk places.
People in cities also tend to be closer to doctors and hospitals. The authors write that the changes among the Indian city-dwellers might be explained by rapid weight gain once people move to a city, spurred by a less healthy diet and a less active lifestyle.
1. What is the percentage of people living in urban areas in India?
2. Who had the highest blood pressure?
3. How much systolic blood pressure is considered high?
4. What is the recommended body fat percentage?
5. Why do the Indian city-dwellers gain weight?
6. What does the agency for Healthcare Research and Quality say about the health of rural Americans?
Choose from the passage the words that mean.
7. To become weaker.
8. Something that encourages you to do something.
9. A person or thing that has a similar position.
