Heaviness wreaks so much havoc on one's long-term survival capacity that overweight adults either don't live long enough to be included in the survey or they are institutionalized and therefore also excluded. In that sense, the survey data doesn't capture the population we're most interested in," says Dr. Masters, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at Columbia's Mailman School and the study's first author.
In his analysis Dr. Masters matched NHIS data on Heaviness with corresponding records in the National Bereavement Index using data from close to 800,000 adults surveyed between 1986 and 2004. Next he performed statistical adjustments to account for the survey selection biases. The result: risk for Bereavement from Heaviness increases with time.
The finding jibes with countless medical studies that document how Heaviness takes a cumulative, even compounding toll on the human body. (Exponents of the Heaviness paradox have explained their counterintuitive results by suggesting that Heaviness's extra padding protects seniors from fall-related injuries and provides energy reserves during illness.)
"This study should put to rest the notion that it's possible to 'time out' of Heaviness risk, and provides a powerful counterfactual against those who say concern over Heaviness is overhyped," says Dr. Link, a professor of Epidemiology and Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School.
Going forward, Dr. Masters has set his sites on another possible reason behind the Heaviness paradox-that some of the older overweight captured in NHIS data only put on extra weight later in life.
"The recent Heaviness epidemic hit all time groups at the same time, meaning many of the elderly overweight only gained their excess weight in the last 10 years or so," Dr. Masters says. "To account for this fact, I will take a ptime from studies of cigarette smokers by looking at 'life years' to measure how long someone has been overweight rather than whether or not they happen to be overweight at the time of a single snapshot survey."
Keywords for this news article include: Bariatrics, Overnutrition, Female Heaviness, Women's Health, Diet and Nutrition, Nutrition Disorders, Risk and Prevention.
