Obesity and Illness

Obesity has an impact far beyond the mortality risk increase that we have noted in the previous sections. Reference 12 presents results of a study involving almost 10,000 people spread over various communities throughout the United States. The participants provided information on 17 different chronic health conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, arthritis, and others. They find that overweight individuals have an average of 1.3 conditions, compared to 1.1 for individuals in the normal weight range. For individuals with a BMI between 30 and 35, the individuals have 1.7 conditions on average, and for BMI above 35 - 2.0. When comparing to effects of smoking or recent heavy drinking, they find that obesity has just as strong (or possibly even stronger) a detrimental impact on health.

A similar study in Finland is presented in reference 13. Almost 20,000 people, aged 20 to 92 years, were studied for 15 years. Obese men were found to have 0.6 years more of work disability; for women - 0.5 more such years. Obese men had a 1.7 year increase in long term medication use; women - 1.5 years.

A third study (reference 14) compared 539 obese and 1225 nonobese persons. It found that obese patients had more hospitalizations, prescription drugs, professional claims, and outpatient visits. They also determined that for each increase in BMI by one unit, medical costs increase by 2.3%.

Unquestionably, being obese gives rise to significantly worse day-to-day health and less protection from various illnesses. The results of references 12 and 14 indicate that the deterioration of health increases gradually with increasing BMI.

Previous | Next

Last Modification - November 22, 2004