Health experts and dieticians always press for eating healthy foods and keeping the fatty, high cholesterol and junk food items at bay. But a new study has found that it’s not food that is to be blamed but the unhealthy lifestyle, lack of physical activity and exercise are the real culprits that are deforming your shape.
The new Stanford study was published in The American Journal of Medicine. Experts say the findings are difficult to ignore. The researchers have derived the conclusion following an analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Survey. According to the survey, the sedentary lifestyles and not calories are to blame for obesity.
“Our findings do not support the popular notion that the increase of obesity in the United States can be attributed primarily to sustained increase over time in the average daily caloric intake of Americans,” said study author Dr. Uri Ladabaum.
Class 3 obesity linked to ‘substantially higher’ mortality rates
A new study has found that those who are suffering from the Class 3 obesity are substantially at higher risk of deaths.
The study was conducted by the researchers at the National Cancer Institute.
According to the reports, Class 3 obesity also known as “extreme obesity” has increased over ten-fold in the United States since the mid-1980s. Moreover, it has currently affected six percent of the American adult population.
The Class 3 obese people has accounted for 20 percent of the total per capita health care expenditures in the year 2000.
This form of obesity has been very uncommon until relatively recently. Therefore, there were no extensive researchers or studies on the same. It is, therefore, the sample sizes were also available in the limited numbers, due to which measurement of the effects on mortality of this kind of obesity was also limited.
For the new study, researchers from the National Cancer Institute analysed data from 20 prospective studies involving the National Cancer Institute Cohort Consortium, which took place in the United States, Sweden and Australia.
Those participants who had been smokers in their past or who had a chronic disease history were excluded from the study. Following the exclusion, only 9,564 adults were identified as being class 3 obese, while 304,011 adults were classified of a normal weight. All these participants were followed for a total of 30 years.
Findings of the study
- The researcher found that the mortality rates were 856 for class 3 obese men followed by 663 for class 3 obese women.
- Comparatively, the mortality rates for normal-weight men were 346.7 and women were 280.5.
Note: Mortality rates is deaths per 100,000 persons per year
- Heart disease was found in the class 3 obese participants. The heart issues were the major factor influencing the higher mortality rate, cancer and diabetes in the group. Notably, the death risk also accelerated with increasing BMI.
According to the study authors, as the studies were only conducted in three countries the findings may not apply to all populations. They have, however, not refuted the link between class 3 obesity and a substantially increased mortality rate.
They write:
“Class III obesity is associated with excess rates of total mortality and mortality due to a wide range of causes, particularly heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, and that the risk of death overall and from these specific causes continues to rise with increasing values of BMI. We found that the reduction in life expectancy associated with class III obesity was similar to (and, for BMI values above 50 kg/m2, even greater than) that observed for current smoking.”
