Obesity often follows the young into adulthood

People who were obese between the ages of 12 and 21 are seven times more likely than normal-weight or overweight peers to develop severe obesity by the time they reach their late 20s to early 30s, a study finds.

November 09, 2010|By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

Some adolescent memories — prom dates, fashion choices, Facebook postings — tend to fade and, mercifully, disappear in the transition to adulthood. But a study released Tuesday finds that one increasingly common source of teen angst — obesity — has a cruel knack for following adolescents into their adult years, then tightening its grip.

The result not only confers profound health risks for teens whose excess weight follows them and accelerates into adulthood, it also spells a looming public health disaster in a country where almost 1 in 5 adolescents is obese, experts say.By the time they reach their late 20s to early 30s, people who were obese between 12 and 21 are more than seven times more likely than normal-weight or overweight peers to develop severe obesity — defined as having a body mass index, or BMI, of 40 or more — according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

For women and for ethnic minorities, the likelihood of proceeding from adolescent obesity to adult severe obesity is particularly pronounced. Among women, 51.3% of those who had been obese when they were younger became severely obese adults (for men, the figure was 37.1%). Among African American women, 52.4% who had been obese in earlier years went on to become severely obese.

By comparison, 7.9% of all participants in the study, and less than 5% of those whose weight was in the normal range, became severely obese in adulthood.

The authors, epidemiologists based in North Carolina, estimated from their findings that 1 million Americans who were between the ages of 12 and 21 in 1996, when the study began, became severely obese adults. As they did so, they took on the increased risk of developing obesity-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, certain cancers and musculoskeletal pain.

The report comes against the backdrop of evidence that the ranks of the severely obese — typically, those who carry at least 80 to 100 pounds of excess body weight — are rising faster in the U.S. population than those classified as moderately obese. Given the scarcity of solutions — drugs and diet-and-exercise interventions have proved less safe and effective than experts had hoped — the authors note that "prevention is critical."

For those already obese, the authors said, it is important to identify those at greatest risk of becoming severely obese and focusing weight-loss programs on them.

(source:latimes.com)