Obesity could wipe out older Americans' health gains
BY BECKY HAM, SCIENCE WRITER
HEALTH BEHAVIOR NEWS SERVICE
March 9, 2004
The rates of death and disability among older Americans have fallen steadily over the past few decades, but this healthy trend could disappear if the nation’s obesity epidemic persists, a new report finds.
Researchers predict an 18 percent to 22 percent increase in the prevalence of 50- to 69-year-olds who have difficulty bathing, dressing or walking across a room by the year 2020 if Americans continue their weight-gaining ways. The study appears in the March issue of Health Affairs.
The proportion of older men and women reporting poor or fair health could also increase by 12 percent and 14 percent respectively, according to Roland Sturm, Ph.D., and colleagues at RAND.
“There are enough warning signs to suggest that past trends showing better health among the elderly may be ending — unless other societal changes or medical advances can compensate for the effects of unhealthy weight gain,” Sturm says.
If rising obesity rates remain the norm, disability rates among the elderly will increase 1 percent each year more than if there were no further weight gain, the researchers conclude.
Sturm and colleagues used data on disability, obesity and health care costs collected between 1985 and 2000 to predict the health challenges that might be faced by older Americans in 2020. In the study, disability included health problems that limited the kinds and amount of paid work as well as difficulties with daily living activities.
Between 1985 and 2000, health care costs were 44 percent higher among moderately and severely obese older people — those with a body mass index of 30 or more — than costs for people at normal weights, the researchers found.
Obesity had a much more powerful effect on daily living. Moderately obese men in the study were 50 percent more likely to experience at least some limitation in their daily activities, while severely obese men were 300 percent more likely to lose mobility and the ability to care for themselves. For women, the probability of limited activity doubled with moderate obesity and quadrupled with severe obesity.
The findings “highlight the need to distinguish moderate and more severe levels of obesity … especially since the growth rate of severe obesity between 1985 and 2000 has been twice that of moderate obesity,” Sturm says.
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