Obesity is still a growing problem in the United States, contributing heart disease, high blood pressure and a whole host of health problems to both men and women. But, for women, being obese in middle age could cut the chances of making it to their golden years in good health by approximately 80 percent, which should make you stand up and take notice, not to mention stand up and exercise.
Researchers studied more than 17,000 female nurses with an average age of 50 in the U.S. All of these women were healthy at the beginning of the study in 1976. The researchers then monitored the women’s weight, with other health changes, every two years until 2000. For every increase of one point in their Body Mass Index (BMI), the women had a 12 percent lower chance of living to age 70 in good health when they were compared with women who were thin. The researchers defined “healthy survival” as not only being free of any chronic disease, but also having enough physical and mental ability to perform daily tasks such as housework, shopping for groceries, or walking up one flight of stairs.
The experts consider people that have a BMI between 19-25 to be healthy, while those from 25 to 30 are considered to be overweight and those that are over 30 are considered obese. The researchers found that for every 1 kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, that were gained since age 18, the women’s odds of surviving past 70 dropped approximately 5 percent. The women who were already overweight at the age of 18 and then gained more than 10 kilograms later on in life only had about a 20 percent chance of living to the age of 70 in good health. The most commonly reported diseases in these women were heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
This study was published online Wednesday in the medical journal, BMJ. The U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Boston Obesity Nutrition Research Center funded the study.
Aviva Must, professor and chair of the public health and community medicine department at Tufts University School of Medicine, said, “People may think they can safely gain weight through their 20s, 30s, and 40s, but there is no evidence that gaining weight is natural. These results suggest that small weight gains are not innocuous.”
A British study that was published earlier this year found that people that had a BMI from 30 to 35 die about three years earlier than normal while those that were considered to be morbidly fat, with a BMI above 40, dies approximately a decade earlier. Other studies have found some similar trends in men. Qi Sun, who is a research associate at Harvard University and one of the new study’s authors, said that men were probably equally at risk, since fat acts the mostly the same way for both men and women. The experts said that the finding underlined the importance of preventing becoming obese in the first place.
Stephan Rossner, who is an obesity expert at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, said, “If you are on the obesity track early in life, it could get very dangerous by the time you are middle-aged.” He stated that it was still uncertain if people could regain their health benefits from when they were thin if they did lose their eight later on in life.
While the average life spans have increased in recent years with scientific advances in treating obesity, the experts warned that the obesity epidemic could ultimately undo those gains. Must said, “We know we’re extending life span, but we don’t know if we’re extending healthy survival. If one is going to spend the last three decades of one’s life with compromised physical and mental function, that may not be the picture of aging we have when we think of living into our 90s.”
by – Allie Montgomery/healthnews.com
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