Obesity causes more deaths across the world than undernourishment. Even, being underweight is not as much harmful as being overweight is.
Obesity is a medical condition which should never be taken lightly. WHO considers it a systemic disease and a pandemic which is a serious health challenge for all countries, including India.
According to an estimate, 650 million adults aged 18 years and older were obese in 2016.
Some people don’t pay enough attention to their body mass index (BMI). For them, high body mass index is not a serious problem. Since association between obesity and mortality rates is not a direct one, obesity is never an alarming condition for them, until something serious happens.
A new study published in JAMA Open Network has examined the risk of all-cause mortality among adults who lost weight between early adulthood and midlife compared with adults who were persistently obese over the same period.
The study was conducted by researchers based out of Boston University’s School of Public Health
They analysed two different set of data, gathered in two different time periods. The weight change history of all participants was taken and assessed between the ages of 25 years and 10 years before the midlife baseline, that is 44 years.
Participants were asked to recall weight at age 25 years (early adulthood) and weight 10 years before their age at baseline (midlife). Baseline weight and height were measured at the time of the medical examination. To calculate BMI, the researchers used measured height at baseline for participants younger than 50 years and recalled height at age 25 years for participants aged 50 years and older. Recalled height at age 25 years was not recorded in the NHANES III; thus, the use of recalled height was limited to respondents from 1999 to 2014 who were older than 50 years.
The researchers found that more than 3.3 per cent of people could have avoided untimely death had they reduced their weight before they turned 44. They also found that 12.4 percent of premature death were caused by obesity, or more precisely having “weight in excess of the normal BMI range at any point between early and mid-adulthood.”
The researchers found that Weight loss after midlife does not produce the same result. One big message that this study has for everybody wants to lose their weight is: start early. Start before it is too late.
This study stresses the importance of preventing weight gain and healthy eating at early age. You must start before middle age. No matter what you do after 40s, you are not going to get much benefits from any weight-loss practice.
