Obesity is
associated with nearly 1 in 5 US deaths, according to a study published online
August 15 in the American Journal of Public Health.
In
research that counters previous studies of the effect of obesity on American
life spans, Ryan K. Masters, PhD, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and
Society Scholar at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New
York City, and colleagues report that overweight and obesity were associated
with 18.2% of all deaths among adults from 1986 through 2006 in the United
States. Previous estimates of the effect of obesity on mortality, published in
Demography in 2009, established an obesity-related death rate of approximately
5%.
The study
also showed that the more recent the birth year, the greater effect obesity has
on mortality rates. Further, contrary to claims in much public health
literature, obesity is not protective for the elderly.
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