Study: Obesity Tops Smoking as Risk
Associated Press Writer
LOS
ANGELES--Obese adults have more chronic health problems than
smokers, heavy drinkers or the poor, according to a study released
Wednesday.
The report by the RAND
institute in Santa Monica found that obese people have on average nearly
twice the chronic health troubles of people of normal weight.
"We didn't expect this big difference,"
said Roland Sturm, a RAND economist and lead author of the survey, which
was published in the latest edition of the British journal Public Health.
The study also found that smoking harms
the health of women more than men, with female smokers having about 40
percent more chronic health problems than nonsmokers. The figure was 30
percent for men.
Sturm said the survey,
funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, demonstrates that public
health officials should intensify their fight against obesity to levels
that at least match the public health campaign against smoking.
The study found that more people are
overweight or obese than are those collectively who smoke, drink heavily
and live below the federal poverty line.
The telephone survey, which was
conducted in 1998, asked 9,585 adults about their weight, height, smoking
and drinking habits, income and quality of life. They also were asked if
they had any of 17 chronic health problems, including asthma, cancer,
diabetes and heart problems.
Obesity was
determined by finding a respondent's body mass index, a figure derived by
multiplying a person's weight in pounds by 703 and dividing that result by
height in inches squared.
People of
normal weight have a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9; those considered
overweight score between 25 and 29.9; obese people are between 30 and 34.9
and very obese people are over 35.
The
survey found that 59 percent of Americans are at least overweight -a
figure that is in line with other recent studies.
The study found that people of normal
weight had an average of 1.1 chronic conditions. Overweight people had an
average of an additional 0.2 chronic conditions, obese people had an
additional 0.6 chronic conditions and the very obese had 0.9 more
conditions.
The study showed the obese
tend to have slightly more health problems than people living in poverty
and far more than daily smokers or heavy drinkers.
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On the Net: http://www.rand.org/
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