Background

Health-related lifestyle is widely believed to play an essential role in the prevalence of overweight and obesity. However, it is unclear how urbanization moderates the effect of health-related lifestyle on overweight and obesity.

Methods

Based on survey data of 8266 individuals across China, we applied several multilevel logit models to examine whether the effect of health-related lifestyle on overweight and obesity differ between urban and rural areas and how the effect varies with urbanization level.

Results

We found differences in people's health-related lifestyle between urban and rural areas and variations with urbanization levels. The estimated results showed that most health-related lifestyle variables influence individual’ risks of overweight and obesity in urban areas, whereas only car ownership, exercise time and smoking show effects on being overweight and obese in rural areas. Except for active commuting time, and exercise time, all other health-related lifestyle variables showed different effects on overweight and obesity in areas with different urbanization levels.

Conclusions

These findings provide a better understanding of the role played by urbanization in moderating the effects of health-related lifestyle on overweight and obesity. It suggests that, to mitigate the overweight epidemic, policy makers should pay more attention to local characteristics when promoting related strategies.