Blinded Anthropometric and Blood Pressure Measurement Protocol

The investigators, enumerators, and study participants were blinded from knowing the intervention group allocation throughout the study and during data collection. The participants were interviewed face-to-face by well-trained enumerators to collect the required information, such as sociodemographic factors and self-reported medical history using a standardized questionnaire. Meanwhile, the participants’ height, weight, and circumference of the waist and hip were measured using a SECA 206 portable body meter (Seca, Hamburg, Germany), Tanita digital lithium weighing scale (Tanita, Tokyo, Japan) and Lufkin tape, respectively [16 (link),17 (link)]. The body mass index (BMI) of the participants was then calculated by using the formula “body weight (kg)/height (m)². Meanwhile, the systolic and diastolic blood pressure was taken twice using an automatic digital blood pressure monitor (OMRON, Kyoto, Japan) to obtain the average reading.