Discussion
Our study presents long-term trends for some public-health related indicators in Bangladesh based on representative data.
It extracted several interesting findings that are important for policymakers and stakeholders. One of the important findings
is the increasing tendency of all indicators (except being underweight) over time, which delivers the message that both
urban and rural areas are progressing (but not in the sense of being overweight) in Bangladesh. However, urban-rural gaps for all indicators seem to be similar except for the increasing gap in being overweight. Some of the driving forces behind such development are already mentioned in the introduction. Unfortunately, our findings from the perspective of the richest and poorest groups are disappointing, because richest-poorest disparities are widening for some of these indicators. These findings are not consistent with the urban-rural disparities, which are mostly stable. These results may imply that, although overall Bangladesh is progressing due to the many interventions, these were not as effective for the poorest segments of society. The third important finding is the increasing proportion of overweight individuals in the urban and richest groups, who are more educated. To control this emerging problem, increasing efforts are needed to target
them. It is also important to find ways to keep the prevalence of being overweight lower in rural areas.