Young Adults Are at Highest Risk of Obesity

Posted by & filed under Uncategorized.

safety-lane.com 07105
chiropractic-lane.com
NEWARK
http://www.healthy-lane.com/

Young Adults Are at Highest Risk of Obesity
Individuals aged 18-24 years are at the highest risk of weight gain and developing overweight or obesity over the next 10 years compared with all other adults, and should be a target for obesity prevention policies, say UK researchers.
In the United States, the rate of body mass index change in children nearly doubled from March to November 2020 compared to the rate of BMI change before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a study published Thursday in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s report on morbidity and mortality.
The research, published online September 2 in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, showed that factors more traditionally associated with obesity — such as socioeconomic status and ethnicity — play less of a role than age.
“Our results show clearly that age is the most important sociodemographic factor for BMI change,” said lead author Michail Katsoulis, PhD, Institute of Health Informatics, University College London, UK, in a press release.
Co-senior author Claudia Langenberg, PhD, agreed, adding young people “go through big life changes. They may start work, go to university, or leave home for the first time,” and the habits formed during these years “may stick through adulthood.”

Current obesity prevention guidelines are mainly directed at individuals who already have obesity, the researchers say in their article.
“As the evidence presented in our study suggests, the opportunity to modify weight gain is greatest in individuals who are young and do not yet have obesity,” they observe.
“If we are serious about preventing obesity, then we should develop interventions that can be targeted and are relevant for young adults,” added Langenberg of the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK, and Berlin Institute of Health, Germany.
“Preschool and school-aged children, particularly those with obesity, had larger pandemic-associated increases in BMI than did adolescents,” wrote corresponding author Samantha Lange, an epidemiologist in the CDC’s population health and health care team.
This may be due to closure of many child care centers and elementary schools during the pandemic, which reduced access to healthier food choices and organized exercise programs, according to the report.
In children with obesity, the rate of change was 5.3 times higher during the pandemic, which could lead to significant weight gain, the report said.
Risks for Higher BMI Substantially Greater in the Youngest Adults
The researchers gathered data on more than 2 million adults aged 18-74 years registered with general practitioners in England. Participants had BMI and weight measurements recorded between January 1, 1998, and June 30, 2016, with at least 1 year of follow-up. Overall, 58% were women, 76% were White, 9% had prevalent cardiovascular disease, and 4% had prevalent cancer.
Changes in BMI were assessed at 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years.
At 10 years, adults aged 18-24 years had the highest risk of transitioning from normal weight to overweight or obesity compared with adults aged 65-74 years, at a greatest absolute risk of 37% versus 24% and an odds ratio of 4.22.
Moreover, the results showed that adults aged 18-24 years who were already overweight or obese had a greater risk of transitioning to a higher BMI category during follow-up versus the oldest participants.
They had an absolute risk of 42% versus 18% of transitioning from overweight to class 1 and 2 obesity, at an odds ratio of 4.60, and an absolute risk of transitioning from class 1 and 2 obesity to class 3 obesity of 22% versus 5%, at an odds ratio of 5.87.
Online Risk Calculator and YouTube Video Help Explain Findings 
While factors other than age were associated with transitioning to a higher BMI category, the association was less pronounced.
For example, the odds ratio of transitioning from normal weight to overweight or obesity in the most socially deprived versus the least deprived areas was 1.23 in men and 1.12 in women. The odds ratio for making the same transition in Black versus White individuals was 1.13
The findings allowed the researchers to develop a series of nomograms to determine an individual’s absolute risk of transitioning to a higher BMI category over 10 years based on their baseline BMI category, age, sex, and Index of Multiple Deprivation quintile.
“We show that, within each stratum, the risks for transitioning to higher BMI categories were substantially higher in the youngest adult age group than in older age groups,” the team writes.
From this, they developed an open access online risk calculator to help individuals calculate their risk of weight change over the next 1, 5, and 10 years. The calculator takes into account current weight, height, age, sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic area characteristics.
They have also posted a video on YouTube to help explain their findings.
COVID and Obesity Pandemics Collide
Co-senior author Harry Hemingway, MD, PhD, also of University College London, believes that focusing on this young age group is especially critical now because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. Published online September 2, 2021. Full text

via Blogger https://bit.ly/3nIYgOm